Richard Von Sturmer continues his meditations on Waikato towns with a visit to Kihikihi
On a gentle rise five kilometres south of Te Awamutu, you come to the small town of Kihikihi, the Māori name for cicada. I visited in late summer when cicadas were at their peak.
Kihikihi was once called 'The garden of New Zealand' and Ngāti Maniapoto, who worked the land, cultivated apple and peach orchards, and raised crops of kumara, potatoes and marrows. This all changed when the British troops entered on February 23, 1864, looting and destroying the Māori settlement. The fruit orchards vanished and Kihikihi became a military garrison.
I once wrote a story about a 19th century clock tower that uprooted itself from a city centre and strode away to find a more commodious location in a public park. So, I am pleased to learn that the 'turret' clock above the Kihikihi War Memorial Hall originally came from the tower of the Te Awamutu Post Office where it operated from 1912 to 1934. Then, after what could have been its wilderness years, the clock was transferred to Kihikihi in 1960. Or did it transfer itself? Time travelling across space – what could be more intriguing? Not travelling back in time but time itself travelling, like a spacecraft, scattering its seconds like seeds over the fields below.
The heart of Kihikihi is the monument to Rewi Maniapoto, the chief of Ngāti Maniapoto. During the Waikato War Rewi was labelled a “rebel” by the British forces. When called upon to surrender at the Battle of Ōrākau, he cried out, “Ka whawhai tonu mātou, Ake! Ake! Ake! – We will fight on forever and ever!”. However, after the war the government recognised his leadership and in 1894 paid for the monument to be built on the site of his former house. He died a few months after its unveiling and is buried at the foot of the monument.
Behind the white, wrought iron fence, five carved warriors, survivors of the Battle of Ōrākau, guard the monument and Rewi’s gave. One is Ahumai, a fearless young woman who, although shot in the side, shoulder and arm, fought her way to safety. Another is Te Whenuanui, a Tūhoe warrior. His inclusion is an acknowledgment of the support the Tūhoe gave to Rewi Maniapoto at Ōrākau.
One of the notable features of Kihikihi is the Te Awamutu Space Centre, located on the corner of State Highway 3 and Whitmore Street. It's a privately funded project run by Dave Owen, locally known as “Space Dave”. The price of admission allows you to don a virtual reality headset and take a tour of the Solar System.
I asked Dave why his enterprise is named the Te Awamutu Space Centre when it sits right in the middle of Kihikihi. He explained that the Centre was previously in Te Awamutu for 15 years before its impressive collection of American and Russian space paraphernalia was transferred to its current home. Dave considers the Centre to be a work in progress, and in the future it may take off from Kihikihi and settle in another location.
at sunset
the ice cream cone
is switched on
An ice cream cone is secured to the roof of the Kihikihi Supermarket. I checked with the Indian owner and the cone is illuminated each evening at dust. He added that it gets switched off at 10pm when the store closes, which put paid to my reverie of the cone remaining on all night, acting as a beacon for the milk tankers and freight trucks that pass through the town.
I’m a cicada
about to break
out of its shell.
I spend the night
at the Cicada Motel.
I stayed at the Cicada Motel last year, situated on the outskirts of Kihikihi. But it was closed when I visited in summer. A note on the reception door stated: “Cicada Motel is fully booked till July 2020.” It looked deserted apart from a van parked in front of one of the lower units.
As I walked down, a thin, tattooed young man hobbled out of the unit. He told me that he injured his back while working on the new 600-bed facility at Waikeria prison, 10 kilometres south of Kihikihi; the construction company had hired the motel for the first half of the year. I picked up two grapefruit lying under a nearby grapefruit tree and returned to my car.
Every now and again, by the memorial to the Battle of Ōrākau, there was a whoosh of a car speeding past. On March 30, 1864, the last battle of the Waikato War began. For three days Māori warriors, under the leadership of Rewi Maniapoto, defended their fortified pā against the amassed forces of the British army. A plaque on a stone wall by the memorial sums up the battle: “On this site in an unfinished Pa about 300 Māori with some women and children, poorly armed and with little food and water, held at bay 1500 better equipped British and Colonial troops, refusing to surrender. On the third day a remnant of the Māori escaped across the Puniu River.”
The Māori warriors broke through the cordon of attacking soldiers and suffered their greatest number of casualties while escaping through bush and swampland. The total British casualties during the battle were 16, while on the Māori side a precise number is difficult to establish, 150 being a current estimate. Many died in the swamp and their bodies were never recovered. In the 1960s a severe storm hit the battle site, which had long since been turned into farmland. The storm felled a gum tree, and among its roots the farmer – the grandfather of a colleague at work – discovered a jumble of human bones.
At midday, with the sun beating down, I walked across the field where the battle took place, and passed by a large barn with its hay bales. On the far side a white horse was spooked by my appearance, but then came closer to check me out. This remains a powerful place; I could feel the energy of the earth amid the crackling heat. Ōrākau translates as “the place of trees”, and trees remain the dominant feature of the landscape – plane trees, oaks, poplars – arrayed like sentinels, keeping watch.
a magpie struts
under a green umbrella
of cicadas
After Ōrākau I drove four kilometres back to Kihikihi and rested on a bench in shade of the Jean Gatton Reserve, across the road from St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and the Space Centre. The cicadas were cicadaring in the surrounding trees, providing an electronic pulse to the rumble of traffic on State Highway 3. Sadly, due to the worldwide insect apocalypse, their collective voice is restrained and can no longer match the description from 2003 on the base of Kihikihi’s cicada sculpture: “By late summer the massed chorus of thousands of cicadas is almost overpowering.”
There is a Māori whakataukī: Ka ngaro reoroeo tangata, ko tatarakihi anake e kiki mai. If the voices of the people are lost, then only the cicadas will speak.
I think back to the field and the Battle of Ōrākau; how the land retains vibrations from the past. And all things vibrate, from the waves of light on this summer afternoon to the electrons at the far end of the universe. For all I know, there could be another clock tower out there, drifting past Jupiter, the hands on its clock face still recording the time.
The second of a three-part series on Waikato towns by Richard Von Sturmer, taken from his forthcoming book Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers: My Year in the Waikato, completed while he was the 2020 writer in residence at the University of Waikato. Last month: Huntly. Next month: Putararu.
