Poems

 

'one day you'll know the truth they cant  pull out the roots 

one day  you will know the past and it will stick to the right to conform 

so come and take me home to weep for my lost brother

come with them to his home a cry for his lost maybe dead brother  

they gather still, the clouds of Taranaki, his children's children wearing the white plume,

they stay still and the clouds of his children and every one are wearing the white feather

so take me for the sins of  these sad islands the wave still breaks on the rock of Rouhotu 

so they will take them off the ridge, forgiveness of the sad and will break all of the rocks on the island. '

These poetic words tell of the pain of land being taken from Maori by the Pakeha. Maori protested peacefully at Parihaka until the men were jailed and taken to work camps builidng roads and gardens in Dunedin. The Maori people even offered their captors bread and welcomed them onto their place, but still they were treated harshly. The women wore raukura to emphasis their peaceful protest.