SEASON of the JEW (1987/1997) by Maurice Shadbolt
This aged but ageless treatment of Te Kooti as historical fiction must remain as one of Aotearoa’s great reminders that all is not well in Godzone, what with her Vergangenheitsbewältigung in terms of ‘race relations’ - the Office of the Race Relations Conciliator (est. 1971) merged with the Human Rights Commission in 2001, ostensibly because ‘race’ is a trigger that needs to be submerged in ‘human rights’ where the nowadays more acceptable term of ‘racism’ can be dealt with.
When Hamiora Pere was hanged for treason in 1869, having been one of Te Kooti’s reluctant warriors, the spectre of overt racism in terms of expedient colonial practices at the time has turned into a more covert practice today, often couched as ‘institutional racism’. Shadbolt does a good job reminding his readers that overt racism is not a sign of the times but a calculated perennial design that has been employed by fascists throughout history, not least in our contemporary history. The boundaries between overt and covert become blurred. What remains is the perverted ideology of race.
Shadbolt’s protagonist, George Fairweather, as the good guy in terms of personal relationships with Māori is of course a conflicted character when it comes to his exploits as a British army officer in the employ of colonial militias who are determined to put down any ‘rebellion’ that might hinder their quest for land acquisition, cleverly exploiting Māori tribal warfare, in this case Ropata’s warriors decimating Te Kooti’s lot.
The colonial government of the time calculated that a pragmatic approach would serve them well, i.e. pronounce the lack of Te Kooti’s capture as victory nevertheless, having relegated him to his more harmless religious activities that in principle were in accord with British doctrine that accommodated Jewish religion of the Old Testament as part of British civilisation; an arrangement that was not accorded to Māori customary beliefs and practices, denounced as savage and anti-Christian, giving rise to the absolute need for missionaries to pacify and reform the Māori ‘race’, giving rise to mainly Anglican church conversions but also to a fair number of other so-called Christian denominations (Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist. Mormon, etc.), and tolerating homegrown churches like the Ratana Church and even Te Kooti’s eventual Ringatū Church, even though it had a Jewish religious element that was often ridiculed by the colonists – hence the moniker of ‘the season of the Jew’. After all the real Te Kooti had in his youth been taught by non-other than the revered missionaries Samuel Williams and his uncle, William Williams and also by the Reverend Thomas Samuel Grace, so what could possibly have gone wrong?
For Fairweather – and Shadbolt – all of this was most disagreeable when one disassembled abstract notions of society, race, government, religion, colonialism, racism and what have you, and reduces life as we know it to the personal story of human beings that muddle along as best as they know, or don’t know. Here fiction sometimes interferes with the facts, especially if that fiction is designed to somehow explain or set the scene for what happened in reality. Of course, one does not know what happened to the people without a history (cf. Europe and the People Without History by Eric Wolf, or The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon), hence making it up as fiction may well serve a purpose. In Shadbolt’s case the fictional pre-history is a bit problematic: Fairweather meeting the future Te Kooti (then named Coates – a fact that is disputed) at Auckland harbourside as a young, prosperous trader with his own ship (in competition with a European Poverty Bay trader called Reid from who he learned the tricks of the trade), conversing about religion and Coates’ home turf of the Poverty Bay, soon turning to more earthly matters in that Fairweather spies a young Māori maiden on board a neighbouring ship who happens to be known to Coates as a fellow traveller from Poverty Bay, plying her trade, if not as a prostitute but as finding it acceptable via Coates’ introduction to Fairweather to spend a profitable (for both ) night together. Shadbolt’s use of Victorian conversational English in these situations is both hilarious and depressing, what with Fairweather’s ‘tides rising’ and Mereana’s expertise in such matters. The whole scenario seems bit of a cliché that is designed to foreshadow Fairweather’s eventual journey to Turanga (later renamed Gisborne, sic) where the real story begins with Te Kooti and his band escaping from imprisonment on the Chatham Islands while Fairweather rejoins Mereana Smith (now revealed as a half-cast, her father being a Yankee who had deserted his post to take up matrimonial duties with Mere’s mother) who lives with her two desultory bothers, identifying as Māori, whose ancestor is one of the Tuhoe chiefs in the Uruweras. Mere joins Fairweather in his rough abode by the river for many an agreeable tryst, what with more rising tides and Mere’s expert oral treatment thereof. If one didn’t know the rest of the story – they tie the knot - it would again sound like cliché, i.e. the good, somewhat melancholy man finding heavenly pleasure in a human landscape that otherwise revolves around the Turanga trading post of the portly, very cantankerous colonist Reid, who, for comical impact it seems, is married to an equally portly Māori woman who keeps a suspicious eye on him, especially in terms of his supplies of rum. Major Biggs from nearby Matawhero is the other fly in the ointment, forever scheming to acquire more land from mainly pacifist Māori. Of course, with Te Kooti’s return all hell breaks loose. Literally, because Te Kooti is no pacifist anymore, especially as he had been imprisoned on trumped up charges and now as an escaped prisoner faces the local militia being intent to hunt him and his supporters down, and no doubt kill him. Fairweather of course saw this differently: let Te Kooti escape to the Uruweras and negotiate with him, for up to this point he had attacked nobody on the plains of Poverty Bay, allowing for his Israelite fantasies to play out in the forests of the Uruweras. Major Biggs and company, however, could see no reason in Fairweather’s reasonable assessment and as such coax him into joining the scouting parties to assess Te Kooti’s militant plans of attack. This turn-around by Fairweather seems to be another deus ex machina that enables the story to move on with Fairweather as the main protagonist (his retirement from the story at this point would have made more sense). Fairweather’s meeting a young Māori boy called Hamiora in his bush walks (for checking out subjects for his landscape paintings) and later reconnoitres is yet another literacy device but on this occasion very well done, for it brings us eventually to the very painful conclusion that a great injustice has been done, i.e. to hang Hamiora for trumped up treason charges. Hemiora is portrayed as a ‘cheeky’ boy (as young men were called then and perhaps even today) whose mangled English is a source of much mirth. Hamiora even shows Fairweather a track in the bush that might be an access route for Te Kooti’s warriors that are by then clearly bent on attack and revenge. Fairweather’s warning to Biggs to evacuate comes too late: Te Kooti attacks the settlement and kills some 54 Māori and European settlers, Biggs and his wife and infant son included. The slaughter is described in gruesome detail. Mereana’s two brothers are cut up limb by limb while Mereana is abused and possibly impregnated by Te Kooti himself, leaving a message for Fairweather. These fictionalised details serve to convince the reader that Te Kooti is a monster that needs to be brought to justice. The local army commanders assemble a fighting force that includes the Ropata warriors who will do all the dirty work. Te Kooti’s Ngatapa mountain fortifications are taken – the battle scenes are described in great detail – and while Te Kooti escapes, hundreds of his warriors and supporters (including women and children) are taken prisoners, what with the males’ summary executed by Ropata. To Fairweather’s surprise he hears Hamiora in the line calling out for him. How the bloody hell did he get here (to imitate Hamiora’s supposed diction)? No matter, Fairweather just manages to get Hamiora out of the execution line, eventually asking him that same question. Well, Hemiora happened to be recruited by Te Kooti’s men just before the massacre, the choice being join or die, or maybe with a hint of Hamiora having been impressed by Te Kooti. In any case he took part in the killings although it was never established – in fact – whether or not he actually killed anyone. The fact was that Hamiora Pere and four others (including his brother) were taken prisoners that were transported to Wellington to face murder and treason charges. Hamiora’s brother killed himself in his prison cell, and as the official story goes, that left Hamiora as the sole candidate for being considered for execution (the others were given prison sentences for murder), the idea being that one execution would serve a deterrent (executing all of them would only be interpreted by Māori as martyrs - there was also the idea that the other two prisoners had land that could be confiscated, so better not to kill them). In Shadbolt’s fictional story, Hamiora is first saved by Fairweather only to be arrested when Fairweather is out of town on another scouting trip seeking to locate the elusive Te Kooti who keeps popping up here and there. Fairweather travels to Wellington to advocate for Hamiora. Even an audience with the Prime Minister, William Fox, is to no avail. A memorable quote from that conversation is that Fox says something like ‘if people were all reasonable we wouldn’t need the law’, i.e. the law in this case must proceed, come hell or heaven for Hamiora, paying homage to the law being a very useful ass for the likes of Fox. Fairweather is duly incensed but what the bloody hell can be done? To fortify Hamiora in his prison cell, to tell him that his mana will increase immeasurably by his brave death? The detailed description of Hamiora’s execution by hanging (the British law at the time included beheading and quartering, mercifully not applied in Hamiora's case) is as gruesome as any details of Te Kooti’s massacre, no doubt designed to remind the reader of Stalin’s dictum that one death is a tragedy but a thousand is a mere statistic.
In a sort of epilogue, Shadbolt attaches a ‘fact and further’ note briefly detailing the bios of the main characters. We learn that Fairweather lived on in holy matrimony with Mereana, who bore him three children, including a son who, along with his adoptive brother perished as soldiers at Gallipoli in 1915. Of more fictional impact, we learn that Fairweather in old age travels to meet Te Kooti at his coastal church community, possibly with a plan to shoot him, but relents, and the two of them politely forgive each other, only to land the final sucker punch by Fairweather saying to Te Kooti:
In which case, may Hamiora Pere, wherever now residing, find leniency in his heart too.
Te Kooti knows of no Hamiora Pere, and Fairweather’s last words are:
Quite. Nothing. No one. Never mind.
And the novel ends with them both looking ‘out on dark sea’ (I like the elision of the article). Dark indeed.
A distressing ending. One that had no real resolution even after the novel’s first publication in 1987. So-called race relations, now, in 2026 are mired in so-called political debates about the Treaty of Waitangi and the Waitangi Tribunal what with right wing racists gaslighting the debate with calls of One Nation (as borrowed from the likes in Australia) and One People, denying the injustices heaped upon Māori, denying history (those who do not learn from it are condemned to repeat it) - as exemplified by Shadbolt’s remedy by means of historical fiction.
I am currently marking university student papers on a course called Te Tiriti Ora, with a focus on colonialisation and the implications of the Treaty articles on hauora. While it is a valuable exercise for first year health science students to learn about real issues of health inequities (statistics don’t lie), one comes to the conclusion that by quoting relevant sources one is also absolved from any further considerations. Academic abstraction is a great tool: the definition of colonialism can be gleaned from any dictionary or AI summary. Academic discourses about societies, indigenous and non-indigenous, in historical or contemporary contexts are starkly at odds with Shadbolt’s ideas about multiple versions of history, depending on who is in or out of it, based on lived experiences, real or imagined. If only the students mentioned above would entertain a meeting of reasonable, neo-communist minds, Māori and non-Māori, maybe the history of New Zealand/Aotearoa could be reshaped into the beginnings of novel tales that can be told by grandparents to their grandchildren, of the times when neo-fascist racism became less of the terrible burden that it is now and has been all along.
