Once Were Warriors

“Still, that didn’t stop a sister loving him, maybe she loved him more for being a sort of freak, a standout from the rest of the Pine Block roughies, let alone a son of Jake. Boys: they make such a big deal of being tough. It’s the most important thing in the world to em. Specially Maoris. Not that the Pakeha boys at school are that much better. They’re all stupid. Even that cop standing over there with his sleeves rolled up, arms folded, face set in concrete trying to act tough. It’s males. Grace was sure of it.”

Grace’s observation in the passage showcases how a patriarchal perception of male strength is entrenched in the community from a very young age. Though strength is valued throughout the community, the focus goes beyond appreciation and, as is the case for Boogie, becomes an alienating factor in the community.

“She told them the Maori of old had a culture, and he had a pride, and he had warriorhood, not this bullying, man-hitting-woman shet, you call that manhood? It’s not manhood, and it sure as hell ain’t Maori warriorhood. So ask yourselves what you are.”

This passage reflects the uncertainty that the Māori of Pine Block face when having to define their cultural identity and the distortion that occurs through misunderstanding the tenets of being Māori. While Beth herself is capable of saying what Māori warriorhood isn’t—that is, domestic violence—the true meaning of the term and tradition is only understood once she and the other members of her community reconnect with Māori elders who teach of their history and culture.

“Hell, I dunno, must be something in the Maori make-up makes us wilder, more inclined to breaking the law. Yet we’re a good people. Basically, we’re good. We share things. We’d give our shirt off our back to another. (Till you’d lived in Pine Block a while, that is, and then you’d grow hard along the way, most of you.).”

Through Beth, Duff illustrates The Effects of Socio-Economic Inequities which corrupt the fundamental nature of Māori culture. To her, Māori are a giving people, one of connection and community, but the living circumstances of Pine Block destroy their communal bonds. The idea that Māori nature, too, has a role to play in their lawlessness highlights the internalized stereotypes that are often suggested about Māori in the novel.

“And love, thinking about love between a husband and wife, and how her father never showed his love to Mum because he was of that school of being gruff, tough, manly – manly – and happier when he was round his mates, drinking with them, laughing and talking their men talk, and drinking. Beth further realizing that drink played a big part in all their lives; her parents’, her husband’s, her friends’, herself (till three months ago), everyone she knew.”

Beth’s reflection on her parents showcases the generational pervasiveness of alcohol use and domestic turbulence within her family. The issues that she faces with Jake in many ways mirror those that her mother encountered with her father and show a continuation of the cycle from one generation to the next.

“[Beth] sat there thinking about Jake and this slave tag he’s apparently had to wear his entire growing up. And how unfair it was that one lot got to inherit slave status while another inherited chieftainship. How the Maori system worked. And the English one, come to think of it. Maybe life works like that: you cop what the cards fall for you.”

Jake’s past brings nuance to Māori cultural identity by bringing to the fore some of its flaws in leadership. Although there is a need for the Māori of Pine Block to reclaim themselves, Beth thinks that their past, and their present, and their history are not beyond criticism or reproach. Nevertheless, her final thoughts suggest that this “system” is a result of assimilation from “the English one.”

“But we’re just Pine Block Maoris, there must be Pine Blocks all over this rotten country, ya see it on the TV, hear it at school, read about it how we’re the ones doing all the bad things ending up in jail and places like that: Boys Homes, Girls Homes, Borstals, Youth Detention, Youth Prison, Mount Eden, Paremoremo, Mount Crawford, Waikeria, see, even a thirteen-year-old kid knows this.”

Toot’s declaration highlights the common degrading Māori stereotypes while also hinting at high prosecution rates and the commonality of separating Māori children from their homes. That “even a thirteen-year-old kid knows this” also suggests that childhood innocence and dreams of a good future are short-lived for Māori children. They grow up believing that the New Zealand judicial system is designed to penalize them.

“And she could see the lights of her world from her tree perch. And she’d look through the foliage at the row of lights of home – back into the room of other species – so nicely dressed: the women with, oh, just indescribable dresses, outfits, and the men with a tie and a nice jacket. Grace looking back again, at home. Then down into that room. The feeling that something, someone had done this to her: this sense of having been not deprived but robbed of a life, growing stronger in her more and more tormented mind.”

In a moment that echoes her mother’s frustration in Chapter 1, Grace contemplates the same kind of social division and lost opportunities due to no other factor than her family of birth. But whereas Beth looks inward for a cause, Grace knows the source of these disadvantages to be an active effort to take away “a life” that should be available to her and every other Māori child in Pine Block with a good home and future prospects.

“But eventually there was no more light along the back view of state houses. Only the stars, as always, up there shining on. Though a man in town owned a telescope and had much learning, he could have told you that even they, the stars, go out. So what’s life? (Potential, sir. It’s an unrealized potential.)”

Duff associates Grace with the stars here. She, like the shooting stars that guided her to the Tramberts, burns out and never learns what her life might be beyond what she’s known. It’s “unrealized” in both the sense that it never occurred and also in the sense that she had potential but did not realize it.

“Ceiling a rib-row of rafters painted in traditional fern-curl or geometric pattern. Two main centre support poles, each an elaborately carved totem of massive log. A bookless society’s equivalent of several volumes. If you knew how to translate it, that is.”

The intricate carvings at the wharenui act as a repository for Māori knowledge, history, and lore. However, because of the government’s assimilation mandates and applied protocols, Beth, her family, and most Māori attending Grace’s funeral are without the means to decipher its meaning and know their cultural inheritance. This epitomizes the theme of Distorted History and Disconnection from Cultural Identity.

“And a woman, you know, her heart just racing, and proud. (I feel warrior too.) Inspired. (I feel as my ancestors must’ve felt.) Skin alive with power, stomach on fire with jolts of electric excitement. At the sight. This sight of what (she) they all must have been. Her mind no longer able to think – not in words. Filled that she was with this, this sense of…STRENGTH. (Strong. I am made strong again.).”

Despite the terrible circumstances, Beth’s encounter with an expression of Māori culture renews her sense of self and self-worth. Though she grieves for the loss of her daughter, she feels connected to her past in a way that reaffirms who she is in the present: a woman who has lost but who is accompanied by her heritage and people and can carry on through the trials of her life. This presents a major moment in Beth’s character development.

“And Grace’s face there the picture of death. Death not moving. Whilst life – Life, man – it was seething the opposite in the two hundred and more inspired living around her.”

Grace’s death becomes a catalyst for change in her mother and, more broadly, in the Māori of Pine Block. It hence initiates the falling action. Though Grace’s life comes to a tragic end, the potential for a vivacious renewal of pride, self-assertion, and reclaimed identity in those around her emerges from it.

“Trambert having difficulties reconciling the files in his head of newspaper readings and TV programmes and TV news figurings, of this race being a people in such trouble, spiritually; and even the culture meant to be shaky, or so he understood. (Really?) Trambert scarcely able to believe his ears, the quality: it had him, the hymn, to having to bit his lip, but still his eyes misted over. So he bowed his head.”

Duff suggests that part of reconciling the social divisions between Māori and Pākeha must address the perspectives that qualify each community. Here, Trambert comes to realize that he was informed about the Māori through misconceptions and stereotypes.

“We want more VOLUME. And fuck the neighborhood, makin it out as an act of stroppiness, or gang-power display, when the truth was (any kid could see) they wanted to hide in the volume of music like they were always hidin behind their shades or in the dope and the booze and the fags; they juss wanna drown out the, you know, the upbringing. The stain of growin up a Pine Blocker. Of growin up havin to fit a role, a race role, man, and thassa fuckin truth […], havin to turn yaself into sumpthin ya mightn’t be. Yeah, thas what bein a Maori is for a Pine Block Maori.”

Like their parents, most of the young Brown Fist members are looking to escape from the realities of their environment. There is a lack of security and stability in the lives of Pine Block Māori children, and in order to feel more secure within themselves, Nig and his fellow Brown Fist members look to any means to fill the void, be it alcohol, drugs, violence, loud music, or even just clothes that make you look “tough.” This passage highlights The Impact of Internalized Intergenerational Trauma.

“All these heavies lined up down her hallway. And all over a lousy fucking TV; and not as if it was their TV, the Browns’, it belonged to some white prick with a business in town getting dumb Maoris to do his dirty work forim. That’s how Nig Heke was fast seein it.”

Specifically, there is a double standard to how Jimmy Bad Horse operates: For all that he promises a place of belonging and acceptance in his gang, the gang becomes a tool to exploit other Māori in their community for the profit of a Pākeha-owned appliance store. Nig’s mention of “some white prick” highlights the fact that this endeavour relates to racist politics that marginalize the Māori.

“(The dream’d turned to a nightmare. And so soon.).”

Membership in the gang comes at a hefty price, but while Jimmy Bad Horse demands loyalty from his members, he, in turn, can treat them as selfishly as he wishes. The image of a new, chosen family unit, one that is supposedly built on loyalty and belonging, shatters quickly, and with it, the innocence that led Nig to the Brown Fist for a stable and understanding environment. Duff represents this in parentheses, reflecting Nig’s disconnected thoughts that led to his misunderstanding of a “nightmare” as a “dream.”

“And a man’s thoughts returning to him like Grace herself calling. Callin from the fuckin grave. Swallowing. Courage fleeing. Just up and fuckin off on a man. Just this shell of him standing there, being stubborn, stupid, waiting forem to move first. Inside the man it was like a…? like a kid or sumpthin…? Like a kid cryin.”

When Jake gets punched by Sonny Boy Jacobs, the entire persona that he’s built around his strength crumbles and reveals the vulnerable child he’s been trying to hide all along. Duff pivots Jake’s characterization at this moment. His self-worth and understanding of his personhood disappear with it because Jake defined himself purely on his ability to fight and demonstrate violence.

“She thought of Grace’s three-day funeral, her elders, the old women, the paramount chief, Te Tupaea. And wondered what’d gone wrong. And when the kid sighed his last pathetic breath of not utterance but simply expiry, Beth did not yet weep. It wasn’t till she heard the distant wail of the ambulance siren, how forlorn was it sound on a cold Pine Block evening. And promising herself, and promising the dead kid; Gonna do my best to give you kids your rightful warrior inheritance. Pride in yourself, your poor selves. Not attacking, violent pride but heart pride. Gonna go to my people, my leaders, ask them the way.”

After Grace dies, Beth decides to take care of the children in her community. The death of an abandoned child, however, makes her realize that taking care of children’s basic needs is not enough; to address the heart of the issue, she needs to address the identity crisis of the Māori of Pine Block and restore their sense of community and pride. This moment presents a step toward connection to cultural identity.

“Funny thing but a man getting all the sympathy from people at the pub because of Grace and yet another side sayin he did a terrible thing to her. But the ones who didn’t know, they’d come up to a man with a beer bought forim and tellim sorry ta hear about your girl, Jake. People ya wouldn’t expect to, either. Made a man think that, you know, the kid was somehow meant to die: so he could find out who was his real friends and who weren’t.”

Duff showcases how little of a connection Jake has with his children, despite Grace’s tragic death. Instead of reflecting on himself and the possibility that he may have raped her, Jake considers Grace a tool to measure the worth of the people around him.

“And boy was he laying it on the line toem: tellin em to jack their ideas up. Ta stop being lazy. […] Ta stop blamin Pakeha for their woes even if it was the Pakeha much to blame. So what? He asked them in this booming voice that didn’t need a microphone. Do I accuse the storm that destroy my crops? (Well, come ta think of it that way…) No! No, I don’t accuse the storm. I clean up. THEN I PLANT AGAIN!”

Te Tupaea here strikes at the complacent attitude that has long plagued the community of Pine Block. He imparts his reasoning that, though forces may act to undermine them, they need to remain resilient and steadfast in their commitments. He initiates change relating to The Impact of Internalized Intergenerational Trauma.

“Nig gestured frantically toward his face, his new tattoos just like theirs and freshly swollen from doing. But when he looked in the eyes of them all at once, he saw that terrible glaze of reason gone. Quite gone. And their tattooed faces were deeply etched, whilst his manhood markings were but lightly marked.”

Nig’s lack of understanding of his own culture puts him at odds with his ancestors in his dream vision. Though his tattoo is meant to symbolize the moko tradition, it is devoid of meaning. Rather than being a cultural show of one’s strength and manhood, Nig’s face tattoo is a mark made in fear and bravado, one that belies his need for acceptance from others rather than a demonstration of his inner strength and endurance.

“And looking at his fellow gang bruthas and one sista over there curled up in the corner like a lil babe, and they coulda been the same gang/warriors as in the dream.”

Nig comes to the realization that the gang he takes part in is a walking contradiction. For all that he recognizes that most of them are just children trying their hardest to be “tough” adults and that they have a vulnerability to them, there is a sense of danger to them. They, like his ancestors, who beat a dream version of himself to death, could turn on Nig for his fears and doubts. This realization foreshadows his death in a gang fight.

“All these mean machines, man, these grunt machines, headed into town loaded to the eyeballs with Browns achin ta do murder. Aching for it. (And a boy’s heart aching. Oh just aching.”

In his last moments, Nig resembles Boogie and his aversion to violence, emphasized when he writes about a generic “boy’s heart aching,” suggesting that this could refer to him or Boogie or any boy in Pine Block. While his fellow gang members are enthralled by the bloodlust, Nig regrets the actions being taken, but not strongly enough to keep him from accompanying other Brown Fists in this gang war.

“But not so moving as seemingly most of Pine Block, people you would never have picked as, singing the sad refrains of a hymn in Maori being led by that huge woman Mavis, and the mother of one of the dead Browns beside Mavis singing too. And so proud she looked. Oh but don’t forget about The People. Their new-found pride. Made ya wanna bawl ya eyes out. With happiness. Yep, even at a graveside.”

In the final scenes of the story, Beth stands among more than 400 people whom she has helped to reclaim their cultural identity. Despite the tragic circumstances that bring them together on this day, their renewed strength and togetherness indicate that Beth and her community will overcome whatever hardships come their way. This resolves the theme of Distorted History and Disconnection from Cultural Identity.