Sad Joke on a Marae

Sad Joke in District Court

When Dad told me this joke, he used the name Manuel who appeared in a Mexican Court

Dear Apirana Taylor: I do hope it is ok to put your poem here. It has inspired a range of poems including last weeks letter titled ‘Sad Joke in Clinical Psychology.’ I felt it needed to be here, as the tuakana to the poems that will follow.

Dear Readers: And to my new subscribers (a big mihi to you) and to my ‘old subscribers (thank you for staying - I’ve been on here over 6 months now)….I wonder how the next few ‘letters’ will sit with some. If there is discomfort, please sit with that. Let it be. Be curious about it. And maybe for others, how do we channel those feelings? My Dad, in his Tarbuk creative mode had a list of 10 commandments. One of those was ‘Go forth my child and bash. But don’t bash with your fists, bash with your mind.’ A Mahi a Atua analogy to this might be to flood the world with light. Speak up.

Sad Joke on a Marae

By Apirana Taylor (writer, poet)

Tihei Mauriora I called Kupe Paikea Te Kooti

Rewi and Te Rauparaha

I saw them

grim death and wooden ghosts

carved on the meeting house wall.

In the only Māori I knew

I called

Tihei Mauriora.

Above me the tekoteko

raged.

He ripped his tongue from his mouth

and threw it at my feet.

Then I spoke.

My name is Tu the freezing worker.

Ngāti D. B. is my tribe.

The pub is my Marae.

My fist is my taiaha.

Jail is my home.

Tihei Mauriora I cried.

They understood

the

tekoteko and the ghosts

though I said nothing but

Tihei Mauriora

for that's all I knew.

Taylor, A (1989).Pacific voices: an anthology of Māori and Pacific writing, Auckland: Macmillian

SAD JOKE IN DISTRCIT COURT

As first told to me by my Dad, Paki Cherrington (actor, writer)

Everyone knew Tama. Every Saturday he would walk down to the local flea market and say Kia Ora to everyone. The lady who did the fried bread. The vegetable market sellers. Even the local police officer.

One Saturday at around lunch time, he was walking down to the market when he walked past a Pākehā man, who was wearing a T-shirt with the Union Jack on it. Tama stopped and stared at this man and was suddenly filled with an indescribable rage. The man asked him what he was looking at. Tama began yelling at him, ‘You’re nothing but a coloniser.’ The Pākehā man was taken a back and told him to fuck off. This made Tama even angrier and he ran towards the Pākehā man. Tama managed to wrestle the man down to the ground and sat on him. He was yelling at the Pākehā man that he was a good for nothing coloniser and that he needed to be arrested. 

The local police officer came over and removed Tama. He took Tama down to the police station.

The very next day, Tama appeared at District Court, where his good fishing mate, Judge Baker was presiding.

“Tama, I’ve know you for over 50 years. You are well respected in the community. I have NEVER seen this type of behaviour from you before. What happened?”

Tama replied, “Your Honour, I was walking past this Pākehā man and when I saw him, I was filled with such rage. It took me right back to my tupuna and what happened when we signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the Pākehā. How they stole our land from us. How the Pākehā didn’t honour the Treaty. All I saw was a lying, cheating coloniser.”

Judge Baker sighed. He had heard this type of defence in his court before from many an offender. He was tired of hearing these types of excuses. “Tama, Tama,” he said impatiently. “This is all in the past,” he said. “All of these things happened over 150 years ago!”

Tama looked over to the Judge, his friend. “Yes Your Honour,” he said. “But I only found out about the Treaty and all of this yesterday.”