The Story of Katey the Giraffe and The Winter Show

by Raymond Te korako Ruka, Son of Waitaha, New Zealand

Everyone who was anyone, waited expectantly. The Winter Show was coming to Whangarei (Northern region of New Zealand) and it would be here for a whole week.

We poor kids from Otangarei (O.T.) one of the brand-new suburbs of Whangarei of the mid 1960’s were really excited, even though we had no money, we were still going to go see the elephants, the lions and the giraffe who loved apples. Then there were the monkeys and horses, that the girls would take their apples and carrots and peanuts for.

We became known to the caretakers of the animals who would offer us payment in return for our generosity to their animals, but we politely declined, even though we had no money of our own, and told them, the animals reminded us of ourselves and in those guardians letting us meet and greet their charges, then we needed no payment for we were already being repaid tenfold.

Instead, they, like the animals, became our friends too, because, although nothing was spoken into form at the time, I believe as young as we were, we all recognized the poor hapless, caged-in-spirit, of each one of those incredible animals and we all liked to believe, that the animals recognized the determination in each of us, to fight with all our youthful might to maintain our own sense of dignity as well and the only way we could prove it, was to present each offering to each animal, in silence and lay our offering before each penned or caged animal without fear of being harmed.

Every year, without miss, we all paid our respects to the animals and their carers first before we went our different ways. The girls to spend their money from our “savings” and we, the boys to browse and be delighted at the noise, mayhem and spectacle of it all. It never faded, our wonder at the glitz, the glam and the blaring noise. 

Almost, as importantly were the sideshows with all the weird things and people and the yummy stuff we could all salivate over. Our little sisters from around our Otangarei community, couldn’t wait either, to go have themselves those sticky red things with sticks poking out of them. Toffee Apples, they kept correcting us, were their proper names.

None of us boys had any money and taking the wife and family to the Winter Show like every other ordinary family, was the same as asking one of our dads if he would enroll, us, for Tap Dancing or Opera Lessons. Things like that – just didn’t happen, and so kids like us, tried our best to make our own dreams come true. We had to make things happen ourselves, which meant, sometimes having to, tip-toe up-to and sometimes touch the thin blue line of the Law.

What was more scary for all of us, was, not that we’d go across that blue line, because the odds were stacked against all of us – although we never had the life experience and maturity at the time to understand why. What was absolutely not acceptable, to any of us, was that we’d break each of our mama’s hearts. That would have been unconscionable for any one of us.

The common bond that glued us all together, was our mothers’ love, care and concern for all of us. Each of us, the mothers of  OT mothered all of us and their unique motherly looks kept all of us in check. If you misbehaved, or misspoke, they never shouted or roared like some of the father’s, they merely looked at you with “that look” that mothers and their kids from all around the world knew and understood – and you got it, WHAM! Belted and taught a lesson in the most loving way possible. 

If only our dad’s had had the wherewithal, or even, the plain, simple courage to stand-up and become the real men that they really were. Somewhere under all those layers of their own cultural, generational, and historical trauma, and forcefully state to the culture of Kiwi supposed masculinity at large, “This stuff of hitting our kids is wrong, there’s nothing wrong with them, its us, we’re the one’s who are all messed up!”

We, their son’s, all knew that beauty was inherent in all those men who were of our father’s generation, because we lived with it, beside it, viewed it – and were each gifted, albeit, in snippets, the sheer beauty of what could be in store for ourselves if only we wanted to aspire to deserve it enough, not by participating in the gluttony of the madness, but by simply claiming the righteousness of one’s own “self-individuality” from out of the pack of the tumbling crumbs of that warrior leftover called Patriarchy and claim back for ourselves our rightful inheritance of the generosity and gentleness that was Matriarch.

Our ancient Waitaha endowment, whether we be rich or poor, we had that legacy running through our veins and into the blood streams of our consciousness and no one, absolutely no one had the ability or capacity to deny us that – which was ours!

Everyone of those men, in moments of incredible beauty had the knowledge of our navigating ancestors, they had within them the prose of poets and the eye of archers. Everything they did, they did for family and if you were one, you were all that defined an ancestral line back – not to man, but to our beginnings and it came not from a man and woman of originality in a Parasidic Garden, but from a woman’s physical form, carved from the materials and minerals of Mother Earth Herself, Hine Ahu One, our ancestral founding Mother.

However, in a world coming out of a murderous foreign European world war for a second time, the mental anguish became unbearable.

In a world that called itself civilized, our poet, artist, philosophers, dancers, priests, and yes, even our dads – had had enough! That generation of men, my father’s line, raised by incredible women of abiding gentleness and love and fathers who, at the time, were considered the last of the authentic, remnant peace priesthood of Waitaha, retreated into the asylum of their own minds and became lost.

Functioning only as robots, they did their best and alcohol did the rest. These men had their kids and crossed their fingers, while claiming every wish-bone in every chicken the family had for dinner – broke it in two and wished for something better for all of us. Anything – other than what they had had to go through.

There was no place left for them to reside other than in their state of hopelessness and our beloved mothers loved that depressiveness from them, so their children might not be afflicted, but become more sympathetic toward that lumbering world and in that sympathy, become the lancers of that boil that had infected a generation of our Waitaha Angels of Peace who had had the wings of their innocence clipped by a hate-filled Germanic monster, and its underlying intent of cleansing through murder the supposed impurities and enslavement of the rest. A monster, not from children stories, make-believe, or cinematic movie, but from across the other side of the world.

And now we – elderly ourselves, children of that Matriarchal Peace Seed, we left our grown-up children behind to tell the world what our fathers had been unable too. We were told to go and whisper our parents birthright to all who might pass our way and invite one and all to go sit and find that identical space of beauty within themselves, for that is our simple Waitaha truth, minus the gobbly-gook of Hollywood hero’s, leading starlets and scripted happy endings.

We OT boys started a savings account (one of our mum’s used baking powder tins more correctly) that we’d stick the lid to the tin with lots of cellotape that made it “burglar proof.” We put a slit in the lid that would just be big enough for coins to fit through and started putting all the money we got from our, after school jobs in there.

By the time the Winter Show came around, every year, we’d have a half dozen or so of heavy baking powder tins full of pennies, half crowns, and silver shillings and we’d hand all those tins over to our sisters to spend on those sticky things that they’d all reply together were “Toffee Apples” for the zillionth time, and still have lots left over for them to go on whatever ride they choose to go on. We boys could tell by looking at them, that it made our little sisters happy, and we boys got an inkling of how big men must feel when they made their partner’s inner core ooze with that feeling of being loved and happy and have the overflow spill from their eyes in droplets.

Somewhere in the innocence of us, I believe we were trying to make up to our Mother’s, by showing them in our own simple, innocent way, that that damn “Buck” would stop with our generation. No longer would we allow girls to be treated in the manner that we “watched” our mums being treated. Not the physical abuse manner, for I/we did not witness nor would we have tolerated it, but that other one that bullying macho, so-called manly one. The ‘come and go as I please’ type of one, alongside, the putting your thumb on another’s head and pushing them into the ground type of  one! 

It made us boy’s feel like real super hero’s that no one knew anything about this except our little sisters from OT and that was all that mattered to us. We allowed no one to touch or speak ill of them, including ourselves. They came and went as they pleased, and the multi colored flowers of self esteem and confidence that blossomed in the way, each of them reacted to their new-found state of worthiness was the reward that we their brothers-n-arms, were all privileged to witness. They, and only they, alongside our Mothers, blood Aunts and birth sisters were the only women/girls who we allowed to order us about and in our culture, only Mums and sisters are given that privilege.

But we boy’s, we allowed our little sisters to do what only our beloved mum’s could. Order us About! And girls being the amazing people they are – they did! 

And we were thankful. We young boys, looking at each other, had to admit, that if any thing did happen to us, one of us at least should somehow tell our story so that others facing similar circumstances, may be emboldened to find that pearl within their own depth of despair to lift themselves up. To know, that no matter how low things got, there had been others who proved that any tragedy can be overcome if you trusted yourself to believe, that we all have the wherewithal to be the shaper and shifter, not of the world, but our own character and circumstance.

But we all shared a common North Star. In a time to come one of us would go out and be the story teller as our storytellers of old had done. That one would go out with our Mothers love as their companion and the gift of the Ancestors as their guide, to share our simple story, and in the telling of our own, we would be sharing the greater one of our Ancestors – Waitaha the Nation of Peace.

Our Mothers cautioned each of their sons, that if you are called to speak they said, say only what your father’s couldn’t – for they were your teachers. Don’t judge them by their actions, view their actions as those of casualties of a war being continually waged around the world upon the spiritual aspect of Indigenous Consciousness.

A heavy toll our fathers tohungatanga (Priesthood) lineage has had to pay for being so close to Nga Tuturutanga, or in “simple terms” the dust of another shift that took place. Kei te tainga mai o nga Patupaiarehe. The re-emergence into our consciousness of the presence of the Fairy People, the Message Carriers. When different levels of consciousness are revealed, there are consequences. The war may not have physically touched our Motherland, but those with the mindset to understand such occurrences, were just as much victims as were those who were casualties of the bombing and air-raids by enslaved minds in newer times. In fact mental consequences pay a heavier cost because it is easier to dismiss mental wounds when optically measured against the horrific violence incurred by the physical on an unimaginable scale.  

Make no mistake, our father’s all walked knowingly, in their ancestral footsteps, so the “pixie dust” of those Ancients, and not the consequential blasts of war, would fall more gently into the hearts and minds of their own children. They were sacrificial lambs, knowingly exposing themselves, so that their ancestral message of peace and not their behaviors might be taken up by their heirs.

For years now Western and Asian Religions with the financial and political muscle have been storing away human knowledge in nuclear proof protected tunnels and caves. It saddens me because the reality of the actions are that knowledge is more important than the present (our children and mokopuna). Our children and moko have already been deemed irrelevant in the eyes of these “strangers.” 

Why not educate the war out of themselves and leave our babies to go to their Kohanga Reo and hear the korero now. And not have their own beneficiaries who have access to shelters should the time arise, be the sole benefactors of all our sacred information.

So sad! 

None of us had to speak about our fathers because they could have been a presence, but never were and in truth, their absence was a relief. Everyone spoke badly about their father’s, but no one mentioned their mother, and no one questioned another cohort about their mother or gave information about their own. Mother’s were off limits even when they invited you for a meal. Irrespective of the family members present, you had your meal, helped your friend clear the table, then with your mate, washed, or dried the dishes.

Unless one was expressly invited, one never stayed over to share conversations with a family. The dining formalities, and your part of the cleanup completed, you politely thanked Papa Bear for inviting you to join them and left. “Whew, all that crap, just for a feed!” you whispered to your grinning mate, who walked you to the door when you were all done. We all did that and said all of that when leaving another sisters or brother’s home. The sweet slandering of each others family was reserved exactly for these sorts of sweet moments, where no offense was intended, merely, another strengthening of our familial bond.

The building blocks of intimate relationships that are only understood by its participants. The true understanding would only come much later when we had children of our own and one day heard their same mumbling and grumbling just audible under its youthful unsuccessful attempt at suppression.

Recall! That’s the beauty of the teaching. One learns, every kid thinks she or he has the whole world sitting squarely on their shoulders alone and the heaviest  weight is that of their parents. There will surely come a time, when one might be so blessed, their own child will react the same way with the same amount of whispered, algebraic mumbo jumbo and the cataclysmic reaction of an instinctual parental horrified reaction, that was momentarily ready to detonate, but, before any irreparable damage is meted out, feelings fizzle away with realization into a mirrored image, of a by-gone memory of one’s own self, and one’s own dad.

Karma could also be said to reside in every Mama’s silent warning she gifted to every child “that fell” from her, in that “Told you so” excuse of a smile that uniquely belonged to her!

We all laughed about it then, when we were kids, and now, we old one’s, those few of us who are left – in times gone, whenever we were lucky enough to get together, we teared-up about it and managed some wistful smiles.

The Winter Show, for several years now, it had become one of the very big attractions of the whole Te Taitokerau Rohe, the Northland Area (The most northern province of New Zealand). As usual it would be held at the Exhibition Grounds in downtown Whangarei. It was a big attraction because TV was just arriving in New Zealand and the cost of a set and the installation, plus the big arial that every set needed (at that time) that was usually attached to the chimney was a cost parents who didn’t know about these “Strange Things” weren’t interested in. 

A usual fathers retort would sound something like this: “Better to spend money on other things like food. Anyhow, the kids go to the 2 o’clock kid show matinee and they’re always outside playing with their mates, surely, that’s plenty entertainment for anyone.” “Why, we had nothing like these silly expensive things in our day, why would the kids need a TV when we’ve already got a good radio, the same one their grandfather listened too?” “Goodness me, kids and this modern-day crap. The worlds going to hell for sure – mark my words Mum!”

As a consequence, in times past, most of us had no TV set at our homes and the only one home that did have a TV, that’s where we all ended up every Saturday night, from 7 to 10pm. TV came on at 5pm and closed at 11pm during the week and shut down midnight on weekends.

Every night the TV would close down by playing God Save the Queen. We all stayed up for that part, because all the boys, even those who’d fallen off to sleep and would be wildly shaken awake as though ghosts were coming down the chimney instead of Santa (not that he ever came) would stand at attention imitating all the soldiers at attention on the screen and the girls would be yelling, “Get out of the way you silly buggers we can’t see anything! And that would be the que for Mrs. H to come down to the lounge from her bedroom where both she and Mr. H were holed up and quietly send the girls and us soldier boys off home after the anthem had ended. Mrs. H was beloved by all of us for her kindness in allowing her house to be over-run by kids, most Saturday nights. It was something we all remember with true appreciation. Mr. H was like most of our dads, he just kept the hell out of the way, but his generosity was and is quietly remembered and thanked.

Well, back to the great happening, the Winter Show! It appeared that the “multi-colored, flashing lights around the parameter of the show grounds and the loud blaring music that we watched and were entranced by, as poor Otangarei (OT) kids, was the greatest event in the whole wide world. Side-shows, clowns, noisy go-karts circling around and around an enclosed wooden track. There were two Ferris wheel’s, a really high one for big people and the other more slower, lower one for kids, that only mom’s, or dad’s and their baby’s or little one’s were wont to go on. 

There was a spooky ghost train, animals of all shapes and sizes including my favorite the old giraffe I’d named Katey who kept coming over to me because I had my pockets bulging with apples and carrots for her and the Ghost Train that took screaming people (kids mainly), on a ride through a ghost house painted black with spooky white skulls and bones for special effect. There was the scary Octopus Ride with its rotating, swirling, arms, and more screaming people. The candy floss. There were also toffee apples and lots of fried stuff. The smorgasbord aroma and noise of all these delectables that all of us knew we’d never have the money to ride, taste or throw a tennis ball at to knock something over and win a prize to take home for mum.

We did have laughs though watching fathers and boyfriends lose their cool and pride in front of their various beloveds and us gleeful poor kids who feigned indifference, but inside we were all cracking up! Every time, without fail, our hero’s would falsely intimate how great they were at hitting targets off a pedestal that was standing upright 10 or so feet away in front of them, with an ordinary tennis ball Those types of dads and/or boyfriends give accuracy away to show their fawning, starry-eyed partners, how “brawn” beats brain every time when knocking things over, so instead of concentrating on precision and direction, our hero’s always began by rolling their shirt sleeves up as far as they’ll roll and choose a manly pace, the faster the better, every time! 

And miss – every time!

And the smiling man puffing a cigar, offers him another 5 balls to throw – for a discount.

So, he tries again and again and again until his poor arm that he’s rubbing to get the circulation going to stop it from aching, meanwhile, there’s all these stone-faced, bloody weird, silent Maori kids just watching, then the wife or the girlfriend steps up for a turn and asks for instructions on what to do and how to do it. Not from the husband or boyfriend, but the man with the cigar, bowtie, wizard-hat and bigger smile.

It doesn’t help your accuracy when you’re aiming at something, and there are these kids watching every move you make. They’re not saying anything or reacting in any way, just this numbing silence…watching!

And yes, the man with the big smiling face whose left his cigar somewhere, offers our hero another 5 balls, at cost this time.

Everything – it all enticed us not to climb the Mount Everest fence that they all said was to keep the tigers, lions, baby elephants and monkeys in. Rather, we all knew their fabricated falsehood. It was really to keep all the poor kids like us out because we never had the price to pay to “go in” let alone, go for a ride on any of the go-carts, or the Ghost Train, or the little horses they said came from somewhere called Arabia that we’d brought carrots from our dads gardens and “throw out old apples” we got from the OT grocer store where our friend Eddie worked after school. 

We all wanted to go on the little horses, but if we had the money, we would have definitely chose to go on the ghost train so we could smack the ghosts if they got too close to our faces like ghosts did in the movies to scare kids, and make them swear at us, just to prove they were really some of our school buddies who were lucky enough to have applied “early” for one of the ghost jobs.

Anyways – Whangarei was our place. We children knew where all her cracks and crannies were. Particularly, we knew that one spot along the high menacing fence line that they’d temporarily erected to keep us out, where they couldn’t protect. They, the clever planners, always forgot about the locals, not the local people, rather, the local kids who walked everywhere and when you walk everywhere you walk in straight lines because, its the same principle as the racing car. The car that is driven consistently at speed over the shortest distance between two points over a given distance will always, barring mishaps, beat the fastest car. 

In other words, we knew all there was to know about where they were building their high netting fence. In a secluded spot off to one side, beside a bridge there was a drain, a deep drain that allowed water during the rainy season to runoff into the Hatea River. No one had the authority to plug this runoff so they just built their fence over it and thought to themselves, “No one in their right mind would know about this weakness in our fence. Besides, there was long grass to hide the fence’s, one, weak point. No one that was, except us poor kids from Otangarei. Our free-way came out right alongside the horses from Arabia who thanked us for the carrots by running over to us and kicking their back legs out like Stony Burke Rodeo Horses, welcoming us, while whimpering happily, they all accepted our tokens of love

I had named the giraffe Katey after a pretty classmate who never knew how pretty she was, or even knew I thought she was, and I sought her out with my apples. As usual like the pretty girl she was, Katey feigned a standoffish demeanor and ignored me, until she remembered and then jerked her head to find out where my voice was coming from and looked back, directly across at me. Recognition or memory kindled, she came lumbering over her elongated neck swinging as if buffeted by a non-existent wind. We both cried meeting up again, but I believe Katey was more interested in the slices of apples and carrots I’d made up specially for her, rather then my whispered questions.

Her breath smelt like a fresh mountain breeze, and she gibbered away in giraffe language slobbering all over me, and I gibbered back in my own

style of gibberish like how I imagined lovers would talk to one another. No particular language – just lover gibberish until her treats had been all eaten. Katey taught me how to walk tall with grace, no matter your height or disposition. It broke my heart to walk away, but Katey helped, there was another sucker who had turned up with treats and there was Katey, gibbering away.

A teenage girl, a friend of my older brother, Mackie Boy, whose name was Lena, asked me if I wanted a job with her at a tent where people threw a shilling coin (10 cents) and if it landed on a bag of lollies, or any other yummy thing, you got the prize and your money back. All the goodies had been placed on netting and more often then not, the coin slid off of all the plastic wrapped goodies and went straight through the netting and landed on a length of slanted cloth and rolled into a container that Lena would be kept busy emptying. Kids, with their mum’s and dads, got hooked trying out their luck because it just seemed so easy. But the real proof was in the “pudding” pile of coin our sweet Lena was kept busy emptying from the receptacle where all the one shilling coins kept piling up.

Was she dumb or something? Of course I wanted a job, but when I looked at my mates hoping for their support, they were all crestfallen. Sadly, I told Lena, “No thanks, unless we can all work here.” Lena’s boss heard everything and told us to bug off or he’d fire poor Lena as well. So we bugged off as Lena’s boss had ordered and lovely Lena still had her job and we all had a clear conscience that we wouldn’t be associated in denying any kid, or their mum or dad, in their dream of “breaking the bank” so to speak, our Lena’s horrible boss of all his sweet-toothed things.

We heard prim and proper people state categorically, that there were no such things as ghosts to be seen on the ghost train ride and can you believe it, some even had the audacity of implying there was even N0 such THINGS as ghosts!

We poor kids would have a chuckle amongst ourselves because we knew ghosts are very “particular” in who they choose to scare the crap out of, especially our mate-ghosts from OT. They only choose to scare the big dads who came to protect the kids in case the big sign where you brought your ticket for the ride said in large spooky colored letters, 1000’s of kiwi kids have gone missing and never heard from again after riding on the ghost train by themselves. Of course Dads had to pay treble the price, which they couldn’t really argue about if 1000’s of kids had already gone missing in times past and their kid had already jumped onto the train screaming, “C’mon Dad!”

And no man in his right mind wanted a screaming kid sobbing and shouting to all the passers-by, especially the elderly lady one’s that daddy wouldn’t take him on the ghost train to see some real ghosts! Kids, no matter one’s background, we’re all cagey little devils. Bigger we get though our cagey isn’t what it used to be, it losses that spring-water essence, becomes mixed with that adult stuff. Shitty sort of stuff.

Our mates, who were lucky enough to get a ghost job, would go and moan and groan like a ghost scaring the little kid, who’d start crying which would upset the dad who’d yell out to the ghost to bug off otherwise he’d belt the ghost in the eye which would make all the other ghosts start their ghostie wailing, which would start the kid crying even louder and the father threatening to belt all the ghosts up – but before anyone could do anything, all of a sudden, the train went through the tunnel which had the exit door at the other end of it and back into the sanity and protection of daylight.

And all the ghosts could hear was, “Daddy could we do that again please, please, please. It was soooooo scary seeing all those scary ghosts.” 

Bitterness, frustration and anger is bred at this place outside this fence and I understand that too, especially as I’ve watched from the quiet for the last 20 or so years, the unfolding saga of the American Dream or Nightmare, which-ever side of the fence you’ve been fated to land. Black, White, Latina, Latino, Able-bodied, disabled. Youthful, aged, homeless. Queer, Straight, Bi, Trans and designations of sexual status I haven’t a clue about and I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t even heard of!

All of us, “Whanau/Family” we were called, because we clubbed together for safety and comfort, boys and girls. Sisters and brothers, all sharing that commonality that we swore to each other that we would ensure the “buck would stop with us” and if we were going to be blessed with kids of our own, they’d be loved, housed, fed, talked too as equals and none of them would be violated by any unkind word, hand/fist, or deed, or even thought!

And nor would we allow anyone to touch any of them. We were going to be their role models. Fail at school, fail in the world, but never fail in the eyes of each other and our kids – that’s what we poor OT. kids promised each other while eating our nightly spoils of stolen backyard fruit of oranges, pears, apples, or plums from the outlying neighborhoods. 

Never from our own neighbors even though we all knew where their fruit trees were because we all worked in their gardens on the weekends. Weeding, planting, helping with whatever needed to be done – at no cost, other than a kiss from an aunt or granny and a pat on the back or a falling teardrop from a granddad. Giving and receiving was always assured from our beloved community.

A community becomes beloved when happiness is still the greatest reward for services rendered and expectation has been made redundant by a simple opening statement of clarity. We children said this to all our Elders in OT when we went volunteering doing week-end work. Can we help you with anything? “Would you like us to do this for you?” “Is there anything you need, shopping you want?”     

And we kept our promise to each other and our kids. When one of us became a highly decorated serving army officer, even serving overseas, who demanded when we were men that we address him as such, we bashed him up and took him to Whangarei Hospital and dropped him off to get patched up. He came back on a taxi in his muddied-up uniform and said he was just joshing, so we bashed him again – but not nearly as bad so he didn’t have to go to the hospital. He was just sorta “blacked out dizzy” for a little while and when he come too, it seemed he remembered who we really were and who he really was and apologized for being forgetful and we all hugged and kissed our poor forgetful Officer brother, who really, should have known better. 

Every Sunday evening, it was always a last-minute choice of where we’d hold our closing meeting for the week and those of us who wanted too, could share their thoughts and experiences that had transpired. This nightly meeting became known to all of us, as our Completion Circle. It was at this meeting, each person would be given a time to share their thoughts and experiences. Group members could choose to PASS if they had nothing to share.

We, all of us, were encouraged not to talk too long, because we all had another unspoken lore – ABSOLUTELY NO WAFFLING! There was immediate redress handed out to any waffler. We had a jug of water sitting in the middle of our circle and if you waffled too long in anyone’s opinion they were allowed to get that jug and pour it over you. As you can all conclude our sisters never waffled or yapped past what was considered an appropriate time and neither did we, the brothers.

Raymond brother, do you want to add any other ending here?

Arohanui,

Raymond Te Korako