The Bone Tiki

Read Aloud
Jade Larkins
 Chapter 1 - Eavesdropping
Mat Douglas is waiting for his father to come home so they can go to Nanny Wais tangi. Mats ancestry is part- Maori (on his fathers side) and
part- Irish on his mothers. To reflect this dual heritage, he carved a wood pendant for them, one side a koru and the other a Celtic knot. Mats
mother now lives in Taupo where she works as a teacher. Mat is 15 years old and lives with his father, a lawyer, in Napier, not far from the beach.
Mat thinks his father works too hard and doesnt like the fact that he represents clients who are gang - members. Tama Douglas doesnt wear his
half of the pendant and treats his son harshly - he is impatient, intolerant and demanding. But Mat has two qualities that help him; he can be
stubborn and he very occasionally gets an urge to do something unexpected - what he calls his instinct. Just before they leave, Mat retrieves the
koru pendant and puts it on while Tama gets a phone call from a Mr Puarata, who seems to scare him. Puarata asks about documentation for a
bone tiki and demands Tamas support when he attends the tangi.
As they travel south to the marae, Mat thinks about Nanny Wai-aroha. Hed met her only once, at his great-aunt Hinemoas place. She had been
in an institution for years and had scarred wrists. She helped Mat with his drawing for the pendant and encouraged him to find what hes good at.
That was the first time Mat felt that he could become an artist. Before he left, Nanny Wai showed him a hei-tiki carved from bone and told him he
should have it when she died. So Mat was determined to have the tiki, even though Puarata scared him.
Chapter 2 - Puarata
Tama is very concerned about Mats school report where his only good result was in art. His concern is that Mat will become another
Maori-dropout and that his best subject has no value, whereas law and accountancy would be much more financially rewarding. Mats excuses are
that it is only Year 11 and he is only 15.
At the marae, some people glared at Tama, making it clear that he is not popular with everyone. After the formal welcome. Mat goes with his
friend, Riki, to view Nanny Wais casket and sees the bone tiki on her chest. He warns Aunty Hine about Puarata and the conversation. She agrees
that Nanny Wai wanted him to have the tiki so he takes it, even though he thinks it looks old and believes that it is made of bone.
When Puarata arrives at the marae, he is accompanied by eight menacing Maori men in black suits and a blonde pakeha woman named Donna
Kyle. One of the elders tried to stop Puarata coming into the marae, but Tama welcomed Puarata in his official capacity and insisted he enter.
When Mat is introduced to Puarata, he feels very nervous but even more concerned about his father who seemed like a puppet to him. Puarata
and Tama go to view Nanny Wais body, leaving Mat feeling very fearful.
Chapter 3 - The Tiki
Mat and Riki hide in a room at the back of the whare runanga where they listen in to the adults conversation. Hine is very strong
towards Puarata and also towards Tama because he is fighting for Puarata. Puarata says that the tiki is his because he lost it and he
couldnt get it back from Wai-aroha because she had been locked away in a mental institution. Mat and Riki watch as Puarata looks for
the tiki. When he cant find the tiki on Wais body, Mat knows he has to leave.
Mat is scared, tells Riki he has the tiki and asks him to drive him back to Napier. Actually, he feels strongly that he has to go to Taupo
but plans to drive from Napier. As he hides from the warrior and waits for Riki to come, the tiki starts to throb and he sees a huge
warrior holding a club (a greenstone club) that no one else seems to see. The figure is coming towards him but then Riki comes and
they leave.
Chapter 4 - Flight To Napier
Back at the Douglas house, Mat changes and packs a bag while Riki grabs some food. The phone rings but Mat doesnt answer it. Just
as they are leaving for Napier, Tama, Puarata and Donna arrive. Mat is horrified at the look on his fathers face as Tama punched Riki.
He also thinks that Donna has a gun, so he races out the back. As he tries to get away, Puarata calls to him enticingly and he is then
confronted by the huge warrior last seen at the marae. Mat runs, knowing that if he looks back he will trip. The warrior catches up
and attacks him, grabbing both the tiki and the koru. Mat is in hurry as he thinks hes lost both, but then a teenaged Maori girl with a
moko on her face, calls out and the warrior backs off.
Chapter 5 - Pania
We were introduced to this name early in the previous chapter - there is a legend about a Maori girl who was lured by the siren voices of the sea people and she
swam out to meet them. When she tried to return to her lover she was transformed into the reef which now lies beyond the Napier Breakwater.
Now a Maori girl called Pania gives him some advice and leads him away. Mat begins to trust her as they reach the Soundshell and pass over it to the port. When
Pania finds out that Mat wants to go to Taupo, she says he needs friends and he has some that he hasnt met yet. When a whisper starts in his head, Pania
shushes it and says they should travel north out of town. Then he should cut inland along the Esk Valley in the morning. After walking along the beach a bit,
Pania goes to get food, leaving Mat beside Pania of the reef .They travel north again, Mat until they reach the bridge that all traffic must cross. Mat is afraid
again because he knows that they will have to cross the bridge so Pania says they must swim across. She gets him a lifejacket and a plastic bag to keep his gear
dry and they go back a ways to avoid being seen. As the swim across, Mat sees Donna on the bridge and he knows that she has a gun. After they reach the north
shore, Pania tells him not to be afraid, that he has stepped into a different world which wont let him go. She also warns him that Puarata knows where his
mother lives and that he should avoid Taupo and go to a pa in the Waikato to get help. Finally, she advises him on two important points - how to get rid of the
whispering (take hold of the tiki or the koru and say Ssssh as if you were making a baby fall asleep) and to hold the tiki and call for Toa is hes in trouble.
Mat continues north alone. When he runs out of energy, he thinks of taking shelter in an old gun emplacement. There he has a very strange experience before
falling asleep he sees a soldier named Wally. The strange thing is that the soldier is not a modern one.
Chapter 6 - Kelly
Mat continues north till he reaches the Esk River, then turns inland following the river. Various people look at him curiously. He continues until he is surrounded
by farmland and high banks so he starts to feel safe. He makes slow time because of fallen logs in the stream and is hungry and tired by the time Puaratas
whispering comes again. Mat quietens it by pulling out his tiki and picturing himself shushing a baby in front of him.and feels very satisfied with this triumph.
Then a girl calls to him. She has a dog by her side. Kelly looks about 18 years old, has short red hair and a sunny face. She tells him hes reached Eskdale Park
where a fair is in progress. He admits to her that hes the Wiremu mentioned on the radio but shes OK with that she used to run away from her folks a lot
when she was his age. She brings him some food and says that the dog doesnt appear to belong to anyone at the fair. Mat decides to name him Fitzy. Kelly is a
clown and offers to take him to Taupo later but during her final show, Donna Kyle arrives. Kelly sees Mats distress and helps him escape back to the river by
doing a trick to make him disappear. He continues upstream to a bridge where he is to meet Kelly. When Kelly arrives, he finds out that she stopped Donna from
following them by stealing her spark plugs.
Chapter 7 - The Summoning Of Toa
As Mat and Kelly leave the farms and drive into areas of forest and tussock, Mat becomes much more relaxed. He looks again at the bone tiki and
decides that it is ugly and that it was probably carved by Puarata because its features are old, cold, but solid. Mat tells Kelly a good story about
Donna because he doesnt think she will believe the truth. But then Donnas BMW catches up with them. As Kelly attempts to escape, the BMW
slows right down and the VW had to stop. Kelly, Fitzy and Mat are threatened by Donna and three men with weapons.
Mat clutches the tiki, calls out Toa and a huge surge of warmth powers through him. Another person has arrived on the scene, a young Maori
warrior who takes on Donnas men. He disables two before the third shoots him several times. The bullets dont stop Wiri, however, and he
disables the shooter as he is about to shoot Mat. Donna leaves and Wiri tells Mat he is now his to command. Mat finds out that the tiki was made
from Wiris shoulder blade and that Fitzy and Wiri seem to know each other. Wiri tells them that although he lived long ago in their world, he also
sensed things dangered him while he was in the tiki so he knows about the modern world as well.
Kellys car is now out of action because Pockface had shot the engine. They quickly realize that three bodies lying around will eventually bring the
police, so Wiri suggests that they travel on foot. The sound of another car coming spurs them on their way, with Fitzy leading.
Chapter 8 - Through The Forest
Mat was very tired as they climbed through the forest. He had been on the run now for many days and weeks and so many strange things had happened. One
strange thing was how Wiri and Fitzy seemed to know each other. Mat woke after a nap to the smell of wood pigeon roasting over a fire. Wiri was also cooking
Huhu grubs which Kelly and Mat initially refused to eat, but then they tried one. Mat decided that Wiri looked like any other young Maori except for certain
aspects his muscles, his exceptional manner and his British sounding accent
After Kelly and Mat tell their stories, Wiri has his turn. He was born around 1400 AD into the Tainui tribe , a peaceful subtribe of the Tainui, and lived in a pa at
Waikato. He was the beloved younger son of the chief and lived a privileged life, but was arrogant and his older brother hated him. Then came Puarata, travelling
as a tohunga, and the massive warrior, Tupu. Because their group lacked a tohunga, Puarata said he would stay if Tupu defeated Wiri. And this was the result,
because Tupu was already dead so he couldnt be killed. Once Wiris body was dead, Puarata trapped his spirit inside the tiki that he carved from Wiris shoulder
blade. With his two warriors and the totem made from Wiris bone, Puarata controlled and destroyed a number of villages until defeated by another tohunga.
Later he fought in the battle against the pakeha then moved to Auckland where he educated himself and Wiri and started to recruit people he could make into
his slaves.
Wiri has lived this half-life for many years, acting as Puaratas bodyguard and obeying all instructions to the letter. But if he was not specifically instructed not to
do something, he found he could do it. He met Wai-aroha, a very beautiful young lady, Wai-Aroha, and they fell in love. But just as they were going to leave,
Puarata sent Wiri back into the tiki. Wai stole the tiki and hid from Puarata but was unable to call Wiri out of it; eventually she went mad and was shut away. So
Wiri started a half-life. He was able to hear, smell, see, feel but unable to communicate. He could feel Wai wasting away and then Puarata coming but was
amazed that Mat took the tiki and was able to call him out.
During the night, Mat woke to find Fitzy gone and Wiri talking with a strange creature who looked exactly like the living version of figures Maori carvings put on
pillars in meeting houses. It had black leather skin and a rank smell.
Chapter 9 - Taupo
The four travellers continue on through the forest and over the hills. Wiri warns them that their path was used by Te Kooti, a Maori war-leader, so they need to be careful.
Mat thinks this is weird because he died centuries ago Mat enjoys talking with Kelly as they go because in his life he hasnt had much girls to talk with at all. But with more
than 80 km to go from where they left the car, it would be several days before they reached their goal. When they reached farmland, they were able to go faster and slept in
a modern hut instead of in small hut as they had on the previous two nights. They also had baked beans and spaghetti for dinner.
As they travelled on, there was a volley of gun firing in the distance which made Wiri hide them, but when they met a man on horseback who looked like someone from
history, Wiri talked openly with him. He then talked with Mat about the shadow world where all the things that people believe in and remember still exist. There are people
like Pania who can cross between the two worlds, but only the dead live there.
As they travel through the forest near to the Napier-Taupo Road, a helicopter carrying Donna Kyle suddenly flies over them. They then see Mount Tauhara which has a great
view of Taupo, but Wiri says that patupaiarehe live there so they wont climb it at night. These creatures have white_ skin and red hair and their behaviour is mischievous.
Wiri says that their passing through the land is bringing out creatures from the shadow world - because of his own presence, the presence of the tiki and because it is
particularly sensitive to it. He sees such a creature in the night, but on waking his fear is more about suppressing in the journey. He knows that Puarata will be watching his
mothers house but he feels that he needs to see her, to have her deal with him and the tiki. He quarrels with Kelly about this need to go to Taupo when she knows its
dangerous and throws the tiki at her, but she returns it because Wiri says Mat can do something that she cant - hide the tiki from Puarata.
Near Taupo, Wiri says Mat must put him back into the tiki again because he cant go more than five kilometres from the tiki and he is dressed funny. Before he goes in, he
gives Mat a sharp-edged bone patu and tells him to protect Kelly.
Near his mothers house, Fitzy becomes anxious which worries Mat because he trusts the dogs instinct. He was also surprised when the door was unlocked and the air in the
house was stale. He wonders if hes been listening to his mind instead of his instincts. He thinks he sees his mother but the figure morphs into Donna who grabs the tiki.
Mat strikes her with the patu and he snatches up both the tiki and the Celtic knot. As he turns to leave, Puarata blocks his way and Mat is pulled to the floor by Tupu. But
then Puarata is bitten on the back of the leg by Fitzy and falls down, so Mat races past him, checks the other rooms and leaves the house after slamming the door in Puaratas
face. Mat, Kelly and Fitzy race away, Mat calling Wiri out of the tiki as they leave. Wiri deals with one pursuer by holding it two handed and stabbing down and a gun shot
just misses him. He suggests they go to the river and calls loudly to something that he hopes is awake. Soon they are being chased by Tupu so Wiri hangs back, while the
public dont know if theres a show or a fight. Wiri and Tupu fight until the cars arrive and gunmen step out. Tama is knocked down for trying to save mat but before the
gunmen can shoot, an enormous Taniwha appears out of the river. This serpent crushes the two cars and snaps at Tupu just before Puarata calls him back inside his talisman.
Wiri throws Mat over into the river where he loses consciousness.
 Chapter 10 - The River Of Aotearoa
When Mat wakes up beside the fire, his head is aching so he takes a couple of blinks. He hears the tiki whispering to him, Mat, Mat and believes that it is his
mother calling him. However, it is just a dream. When he wakes up he learns that the Taniwha of Lake Taupo had helped with their escape. However, when
questioned about it, Wiri wouldnt mention the taniwhas name because names have power. No man can own a taniwha, but it has agreed to assist them
with their journey. Before going back to sleep, Wiri tells him that he must take the tiki to Hakawau, so that together the tohunga and Wiri can ensure that
Puarata is gone forever.
On the journey down the Waikato River, Mat saw taniwha that rose like crocodiles, Maori fishermen, a white girl in 19th century frock and tiki-men on the
banks of the river.
At the end of the day the group leave the taniwha and follow a track through the bush. At one point a Maori warrior appears in front of them. He is from
Wiris world, but doesnt look pleased to see them and he calls Wiri Toa. Wiri explains that the last time he was at the pa, as Puaratas slave, he killed his
brother. On approaching the pa the group is stopped at the gates of Maungatautari pa by maori warriors brandishing taiaha. Wiri was challenged by each of
the warriors before the tone changed and Mat realised that they werent going to be easy. Then the rangatira came forward with an elderly man and spoke
with Wiri. The group were then escorted to a small whare and were fed. Wiri explained that there would be a trial tomorrow.
Chapter 11 - The Judgement Of Rata
After eating, Mat and the group are led to the space outside the great meeting house. Here Wiri agrees to submit to the justice of the iwi.
Everyone who wanted to was allowed to speak. Manu, Wiris cousin, translated for Mat and Kelly because they could not speak Te Reo. The
meeting went on throughout the day and some wanted Wiri killed. After a lot of people had spoken, Mat stood up and asked to speak. He says he
can prove Wiri is innocent. People are curious when he tells them that Wiri was under the control of Puarata, that, on Puaratas order, Tupu had
killed Wiri and that the tiki was made out of Wiris bones. To prove this, Mat demands Wiri to return to the tiki. When he disappeared, the crowd
were berserk. Hakawau allowed Mat to fully explain the wonders of the tiki and Mat recalled Wiri to show the power of the tiki again. At
Hakawaus suggestion, and as final proof of the tikis power, Mat forces Wiri to drop his weapons by sending him telepathic messages.
When Hakawau holds the tiki he senses Puaratas power and tells Mat that Puarata is afraid of him. He also tells Mat that he must try to help Wiri
and end Puaratas power. Mat learns that for someone else to use the tiki now, he must die or be removed from it by time and distance.
It is Hakawau who convinces Rata that Wiri and Mat have spoken the truth. Rata accepts this and declares Puarata solely responsible for the death
of his son, Mahuta. Rata embraces Wiri and most of the tribe rejoiced at this.
Chapter 12 - The fate of Wiri
In discussing Puaratas plans, Hakawau tells Rata to expect war with Puaratas warrior friends in the Ureweras. It is revealed that even
with Ratas ho ho and power, Puarata will outnumber them by three or two to one. To avoid the inevitable death of many, Mat and
Wiri try to come up with another plan that will avoid war. Everyone agrees that the only way for Wiri to escape Puarata is for the tiki
to be taken to the Pohutukawa tree at Mt Caprihanga, where hopefully his spirit will be allowed to depart and he can finally die.
Because Mat is the only one who can safely carry the tiki, he agrees to the journey.
The next few days are spent at the pa making supplies. Mat spends a lot of time with Hakawau, who comments on his bravery after
seeing the wrath of Puarata. He advises Mat on the journey they must take and what Mat must do with the tiki when they get there.
On their last night at the pa, Fitzy returns. In telling the story of how Wiri and Fitzy met, we learn how Puarata has controlled most of
Wiris actions since his death. Fitzy assures Mat and Kelly that the story is true when he opens his mouth and talks.
Chapter 13 - The Road North
The group left the pa after a public reconciliation between Rata and Wiri. This cheered the tribe. The group, including 12 warriors, travelled in a
waka on the river for two days. Wiri sat in the place of leadership at the front. Manu told Matiu about the places they were passing, and about the
turehu, ponaturi, and the patupaiarehe. He also told them about wars with the settlers and explained how to travel between the two worlds.
During the journey Manu commented that Wiri seemed grown and mature than he had been before Puarata had taken him. Prior to his capture,
he had been sullen, jealous, quick to criticise and brag of his brother.
During the journey, Whaiti took the shape of a bird and flew ahead, returning to report to Wiri what he had seen.
Late on the third day the party paddles into Hamilton. It is not the city that Mat knew, but a small town of the past. They are met at the docks by
Timothy Spriggs, a captain from London. He and Manu were friends. The warriors leave them here and return to the pa. Kelly is told that she has to
change her clothing so that she can fit into the nineteenth century setting. Spriggs tells the group that his commander has been alerted to look out
for them, so they will have to be careful going through road-blocks and security checks. That night they stayed at Spriggs house where his wife
Amelia, feeds them and finds them appropriate garments.
The next day they travel north in a carriage. During the trip Mat learns a lot about the war that was happening as Maori and settlers fought over
land south of Huntly. After being stopped by soldiers several times, Wiri asks to be returned to the tiki because he feels too conspicuous.
In Auckland, Spriggs has arranged for them to stay with Simon Forbes, a solicitor and barrister. All too _________ Mat realised that they have
walked into a trap. They are all overpowered by the soldiers who, according to Forbes, had known to expect them. As Mat is knocked out, he sees
Donna Kyle come out of the house.
Ending

Unfortunately, I didn't get to summarizing the last few chapters, but read them. It was an interesting book and I wouldn't mind
reading it again :)