Poverty, tragedy and hope in Northland valley of death

JAN CORBETT visits remote Herekino in Northland, where three children died this week in a house fire, and finds a community short on material wealth but rich in tradition ... and optimism.


Sunrise comes late to the Herekino valley. The craggy peaks rising out of the state forest cast long shadows on this, the western side of the Far North, in a place nestled at the top of the Herekino harbour, north of the Hokianga, and once a bustling port from where kauri timber was shipped.

And it seems the sun never comes at all to where the four-room house on the gravelled Manukau Road had stood, until just past midnight a day before.

Funerals for Kenneth Papaa Te Kani Wiremu, aged 6, his sister Ngarangi Peti Farrah Wiremu, 8, and their 14-year-old uncle Luki Valoa Williams, who died in the fire in the Far North on Wednesday will be held at the Whaka Maranga Tanga Marae at Manukau at 10 am tomorrow.

The service will be followed by their burial at the cemetery in nearby Manukau Rd.

The damp morning air here is heavy with the pungent smell of ash, charcoal and, strangely, salt, like the smell from cooking food in the hot coals of an outdoor fire.

A largely unscathed chimney stands over the remains of twisted iron roofing, blackened metal rods and mattress springs, a bath and a plastic bucket melted to half its size.

Beside the chimney, potatoes and onions have emerged crisp but intact from their roasting.

So did the Bedford van with mattresses strewn on top, which has been parked outside for so long, the grass has grown up underneath it.

The red corrugated-iron barn is also unmarked, and is sheltering a late-model Mazda Familia with its front smashed in. An empty Johnny Walker whisky bottle, its label faded, is perched on top.

Shoes are strewn everywhere through the mud.

A farm bike ridden by a young Maori man with his child holding on behind, stops outside.

Like a lot of Maori in Herekino, he does not want his name in the paper, but he says he moved here to escape city pressure and to run a farm. If you get angry here you can work it off walking across the fields, he says, gesturing across the farmland. "You can't do that in Auckland, eh."

But now he is on ACC after falling off his horse. Anyway this site is tapu, he reminds us. People died here. It shocks him how few of his own people know the traditions he learned well from the old people.

The family's dogs are no respecters of the the gods either. A terrier darts about, while a Rottweiler picks sulkily through the ashes. Its mournful howls carry along the ridge to where smoke rises from the chimney on the Whaka Mahara Tanga marae and the flag flies at half mast.

The people of Herekino are gathering here, met by the women in black seated out front. They come in their late-model four wheel drives or sedans. Two busloads and a van full of school children are there too. There seem to be many more people than houses in this valley, suggesting they have arrived from around the district. A blonde woman in a red hatchback pulls up. She looks like she might be a district nurse; she is a Catholic nun from Panguru.

This might be Ngapuhi country, it was also once missionary country. Churches no bigger than a classroom dot the valley.

But missionary arrogance abated long ago and this nun says it would be wrong for her, a Pakeha, to speak on behalf of the community. She promises to return with a kaumatua - knowing that can happen only in their time.

On Wednesday the media descended for what is becoming a re-occurring story - children killed in a house fire in Northland. Television arrived in helicopters.

But even Maori reporters were scolded by the elders. No one wanted to talk. As one woman angrily pointed out, tomorrow the nation would forget Herekino again.

The main road, now part of the twin coast-road discovery network, winds on towards the village. On one corner a house truck that clearly hasn't moved in a while is hooked up to a water tank.

Further on, the modern Herekino School - established in 1888, so one of its brightly-painted murals reads - is abandoned for the the tangi. But children's backpacks are hanging on hooks outside classrooms, suggesting no one fears they might be stolen. Inside, the classrooms are pristine, chairs and desks in neat rows on the carpeted floor. Outside, are is an adventure playground, a rugby field, a volleyball net and swimming pool.

On the edge of the field is a new large timber gazebo to shelter the children from the harsh Northland sun, which even on this autumn day, is bringing sweat to the brow of the man standing outside his house in the village. At least it is a house now, and this would have been a proper village in happier times.

Before it was a house for his family of nine children, and possibly as many dogs, it was the Herekino store, going back may be to the 1800s.

"This girl is 67 years old. The first one burned down," he says, patting the unpainted wooden cladding he knows he must replace.

No names please, but he will talk about leaving a job and moving his family from Auckland, four years ago, so he could buy them a house to be left in trust for future generations.

No one likes to point out there is unlike to ever be a viable future here for anything other than may be living off the dole, some farm labouring or a job in the forest.

Unable to afford city prices, he set his heart on a property in Okaihau, nearer Kaikohe, and attended a course run by the local runanga, on budgeting and buying a home. He submitted his offer through the runanga which considered he could not afford it, and did not send the offer on. He is bitter about that.

"I was peed off. We did the course, we got the deposit. They didn't do it."

So for $25,000 he bought the Herekino store, already converted to a house, and raised a $17,000 home improvement loan through Housing New Zealand.

With that he re-roofed, brought the back porch and bathroom up to a good enough standard to stave off a council threat to have the building condemned, and is now working on some flood control - if only the council would deliver on a promise to send out an engineer.

Along the road is an abandoned motor mechanic workshop, and next door the old dairy, where 19-year-old Thomas Walker, the only one happy to be named, says his uncle lives. And out back his mother lives in a relatively new wooden house that is being renovated.

While the building is going on the family sleeps up at the marae.

Thomas Walker has returned here from the city too. He was playing rugby in Wellington with Norm Hewitt, but the call of home was too strong and turning professional "would be too much hassle." And he likes to fish and hunt, as he can in Herekino. He's happy playing on the wing for the Western Stormers, the local team.

Thomas works as a hammer hand in Kaitaia. But not today, because it is a day of mourning, "and they're chucking a hangi at the rugby club 'cos some of the boys got five pigs out hunting."

This young man says a lot more his age will be moving back, drawn by the promises of jobs at the expanded tri-board mill in Kaitaia, a 40 minute drive away.

You need a car in Herekino, because there are no shops until you reach Ahipara, a 20 minute or so drive to the north. And no big stores until you reach Kaitaia, another 20 minutes east. Just don't expect all the cars to have current warrants and registration, the locals say.

Not all the cars in Herekino are really cars any more. Past the burned-out house, on the valley floor, lie five or so wrecks of cars most likely stolen in town, driven back to Herekino, and pushed over a bank.

And also just past the burned-out house is a church and a graveyard with half a dozen freshly filled-in graves, and one covered in polythene, ready for unveiling.

Two graves, side by side, are marked by white crosses with dates from late last year. As seems to be the custom in Herekino, they are covered with bright plastic flowers, unopened cans of Steinlager and in this case, a large Santa Bear from Farmers, a watch, a necklace and a bracelet. On one cross is a beanie hat and on the other a black baseball cap.

But no one in the village answers questions about what seems to be a spate of recent death. Thomas Walker says only vaguely that "there were a couple of mate [deaths] before the fire."

And by all accounts the deaths in Herekino did not end with the fire. As we stand with Thomas on the roadside, a four-wheel drive pulls up, driven by a close-shaven man in dark mirror glasses.

"Kia ora," he says to Thomas, ignoring us. "You fellas heard about Joe Hobson? He's dead. And Peter Murray." There's some discussion about whether it's old Joe Hobson, or the younger one. But no one asks what killed them.

The Herekino Tavern, is the last building in the village. Photos on the wall suggest the exterior has not changed since 1956. Recently renovated inside to house a bank of pokie machines, it has taken a new name for the times - Tavern 2000.



The doors open at 1 pm , about the time a world away in Wellington, Finance Minister Michael Cullen was preparing to deliver a budget with very little in it for these people.

They order their beer, light their cigarettes, chat about how Herekino means badly tied, but aren't entirely sure how it got to be called that.

One story is that it refers to ships breaking anchor in a storm and washing ashore. Another that it is from a legend about a captive who escaped because the knots on his restraints were loose.

A young Maori woman arrives weighed down with a carry cot. She sits it on the pool table where the baby is admired. After all the dying, there is a new life in Herekino.