HINEMOA
And she sat and listened murmuring to the water: “Oh, Tutanekai, how sweet is thy music to my heart! On many a calm night has Hinemoa listened, and her joy grew always greater, and her heart happier within her. Sometimes there were great gatherings of the people on the mainland, in the pa (village) of Amukaria, Hinemoa’s father, and Tutanekai came over, but he felt sorrowful amidst the feasting and frolic. He stole quick glances at the beautiful maiden, but his hand was trembling and he was ashamed; and he glanced over where Hinemoa was sitting like a beautiful white heron among a flock of Kiwi, and his heart was frightened. He was frightened and ill, and was full of wrath over it, as over a lizard that ate away his heart. Therefore he longed for powerful enemies, to fight away his trembling, and thus to forget his fear.
So he collected his war-friends and went away like a dark cloud to the tribe of his enemies, challenging them to battle; and great was the fighting, and many were slain, but Tutanekai was victorious, so that he took many slaves and made great offerings to the God of War.
The great battle and the many offerings to the War God gladdened his heart again, and he was frightened no more.
But again, when he was home with his friend Tiki, his music wandered over the water, and took his heart away to Hinemoa, and it brought back her image, as she listened on the shore, and sorrow again grew within him. So he sent Tiki, his friend, to Hinemoa, to tell her of his great sorrow in being away from her, and to ask her to come to him and to his heart, that it might lose its fright and be full of gladness.
Watchful was Amukaria, but Tiki gave his message, and full of gladness answered Hinemoa: “Eh-hu, is then each of us growing in the heart of the other?”—and she promised to come to Tutanekai in a canoe, late on a black night, when he would play his sweetest music to call for her and to guide her in the darkness.
Amukaria, a great Ariki, was only willing to give Hinemoa as wife to a Rangatira of a very high mana, for her beauty was like the Morning Sun over the lake, and he, knowing the power and danger of such beauty, gave order that all the canoes should be taken off the lake. Thus, when the sweet music of Tutanekai called for Hinemoa, she wandered boatless on the shore, her heart full of tears, for she could not answer Tutanekai’s calling.”
Her eyes full of tears, Ngawai wandered along the rolling waves, telling herself in low tones, in Maori, of all the sorrows of Hinemoa, her ancestress. Ngawai accompanies her mutterings with movements which express despair; presses her hands against her heart; stretches her arms longingly over the ocean and presses them again to her bosom; then she speaks with a different voice and rapidly:
“One evening Hinemoa sat listening upon the rock Iri-iri-kapua, and suddenly the longing to go shook her as an earthquake. The trembling of love overtook her, and the courage of love overflowed her heart.