"The mana of the M?ori is by water. No one, here, carrying the same thing that I'm carrying today" TITI TIHU In living memory, before the Whanganui River became a tawny mass seeming to flow upside down, the river bed was clean stone and the water of the river "...tasted like kowhai. The trees used to grow over the river and drop into the water, and the water tasted like kowhai." This is a book of many river people - a 'hidden' prophet, living with over a thousand followers at a place now deserted; a Pakeha-M?ori, making gunpowder using charcoal made from willows grown from cuttings taken from Napoleon's grave; a riverboat magnate, building a fiefdom on 'the Rhine of M?oriland'; a highly decorated soldier, fighting as a kupapa yet fighting for tino rangatiratanga; arsenic and flour poisoners - and always, the river itself. 'Nga toa phohe e ngari to hoe'
- ISBN10 0908975627
- ISBN13 9780908975624
- Publish Date 31 May 2006
- Publish Status Transferred
- Publish Country NZ
- Imprint Huia Publishers
- Format Paperback
- Pages 340
- Language English