And that's where tikanga and tenure of the job clashed every time. Our older chiefs had the worst, lowest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs for having the worst attendance records over decades, therefore were on the lowest incomes, while the younger chiefs were also building poor work records that would penalise them over time, not to mention the financial impacts.
And if they were ministers in their respective churches, this was an added problem. But Whakatu was the only place that would hire them and allow them to do what they had to do on behalf of their people. It worked, but there were penalties which were paid by their whānau, big time.
Moella Hawkins dropped dead on the chain of pneumonia, having attended three tangi in a row, one of them being Uncle Taanga's tangi, in a bitterly cold storm. Sam Moeke died in a carving shed of diabetes complications, after being missing for two days. Martin Ihe died of cancer, as did Tupai Paku ... aue, taukuri e!
If there was a tangi during a work day, then up to a whole chain would disappear, upsetting the kill rhythm. Workers lost a day's pay, the company was put behind schedule, everybody lost.
We got smarter at it though, attending tangihanga in the evenings, as one group nominated speakers and others collected koha, especially if the deceased was an employee or whānau of one.
The union and company agreed over time to deduct $2 from workers who were willing to volunteer this amount every time there was a whānau tangi.
To my knowledge, over 500 people signed up to it, ensuring that a substantive koha was dropped at every Whakatu tangi, which gave mana to the whānau and our speakers.
As said earlier, the older Rangatira were normally on the hosting paepae, which left the main speaking roles to Sam Moeke, Brown Wiki, Bevan Taylor, Martin Ihe or Ivan Emia for us workers.
We never had more than two speakers on any one occasion, which made things succinct. We also never hung around after so that the whānau didn't have to worry about feeding us either, for there was never less than 50 of us, and sometimes up to 200 of us. But go as a group we did.
There was a lot of speculation about which Rangatira had the most mana, which was a betting thing rather than a reality thing, and which was played out at each tangi.
It was based on who got up first, who sounded the best, who acted the part, who knew the whakapapa, and who had the best waiata. On one occasion an integral member of Kohupatiki Marae, Lum Chew, who was a Chinaman, died and lay on the Mahau of the meeting house.
His Chinese relations travelled from Singapore and were called onto the 'Marae Atea'. Uncle Don got up first, so he got the first tick. He explained Lum Chew's history and relationship with the marae, hence his lying in state. He got another tick.
He then explained the whakapapa of the Whare Tanenuiarangi, which got a further tick. He translated some of it into English to give the visitors some insights.
One more tick for Manaaki. Then he started Tukuwhakarere, the number one local top-of-the-pops hit, and he got two ticks for that! Then he sat down with a flourish and we all compared notes and thought Uncle Don had nailed it good and proper. Then Uncle Taanga got up and greeted them in Chinese, which zonked us all!
The visitors were 'haw-hawing', 'how-howing' and bowing and laughing at the korero, then nodding seriously before bursting into spurts of laughter again as the Chinese korero rambled on, only to finish with a jolt, and then something like "chair chair".
Uncle Taanga went on to sing a Chinese song which had Lum's whanau cheering and clapping and singing along. We didn't know what he said, but we joked that he was connecting their whakapapa to us, but we couldn't understand him. And for all I know, he probably couldn't understand himself either, and nor could the Chinese! We agreed the contest was a well fought draw and no money changed hands.
Uncle Taanga had some famous one-liners. There was a petition going around the works to 'Free Nelson Mandela' which was promoted by the many Rastafarian followers of Bob Marley, who all worked amongst us.
When it came to Uncle Taanga to sign, he said, "Ah yes I will sign it, I know those Mandelas from Nelson, we're closely related."
And with the death of Bob Marley, all our Rastas wore their red, yellow and green hats on the chain, and at smoko they played his music and skanked around the ghetto blaster with black armbands. Uncle Taanga shuffled up to them and said, "what's the occasion boys?" to which the reply was, "Bob Marley died uncle."
"How sad, what a pity. I knew the family well. So what time's the tangi?"
It was even reported on the national news that a complete chain at Whakatu had knocked off to attend a karakia and vigil for Bob Marley. "There goes another carcass," we all said.
A Fine Body of Men
There were many ministers of religion on the chain. Brown Wiki was a Ratana Apotoro, as was Jim Taylor from maintenance, and Reimana Johnson from the beef house. Martin Ihe was an Apostolic pastor, as was Ray Ataera, from the paint tables.
Moella Hawkins and Tupai Paku were Anglican Kaikarakia, as was Pat Dingemans from the office. Ivan Emia, Peter Reo Herman (Foo-Foo), Koko and Tute Apatu were Catholic, Sam Moeke was Ringatu, Brother Andrew Joseph and Matthew Tupaea were Mormons, Bob (Dutchie) Bake was a Dutch Baptist, Frank Rosandich was a pastor, while Joe Skipworth knew the bible inside out, and it was never far from his hands.
And on it went, so we were truly covered, no matter who died or who was sick. Ivan Emia was asked why he was a Kaikarakia when he still swore, drank and told lies, and he replied, "God called me to work for, and pray for my people, but he never told me to stop having fun!"
He also said that when he was told by the nuns up the Wanganui River that Jesus had died for him, he replied, "Is that right? I didn't even know the poor chappie was sick!"
There were several exorcisms that were performed on site by outside heavyweights, such as Canon Sam Rangihu, to bless the beef house, the cattle yards and the sheep pens, where unusual things were happening, with workers having fatal or near fatal injuries from heart attacks, car crashes, cancers and so on.
They were all fit young men. It was deduced that these incidents were due to the works grounds once being battle sites and burial grounds of the Tipuna of the area who lived and died at Tanenuiarangi Pa of ancient times. So appropriate karakia were performed to make these sites 'noa', or neutral, of those roaming restless spirits.
It was also not unusual for all the chains to stop at a given moment, in memory of a worker who had died. Karakia were said during these brief, but poignant stoppages.
One of the notable characters of that era was Hape Huata, aka Hap Stewart. He's still around somewhere. He ran raffles for various causes, raised money through Crown and Anchor for sports clubs, and was a part-time bookie, but overall, he was an entrepreneur.
He had the gift of the gab, and still does. "Hey Hap, what's the raffle today, looks like pork bones!" "Pork bones, pork bones?" he would say indignantly, "these my friends, are dinosaur bones!"
"Hey Hap, where's my bucket of mutton birds I paid you for?"
"My friend, just wait a bit longer, the birds are so fat this year, that they are walking up from the Bluff to lose weight!"
"Hey Hap, those jandals I bought off you are both left feet!"
"Don't worry my friend, we are stilling looking for the fulla with the two right feet!"
"Hey Hap, where's the oysters?"
"Oh, the sea was too rough down Stewart Island!" he'd say.
"Hey Hap, when you going to finish your book on Whakatu?"
"Hehehe, most of my manuscript got burnt, but fortunately, I've retained it all in my head!"
Knobby Gillies was from Waiohiki, a true-blue Taradale supporter. He was a long time labourer, as he had attention difficulties and a speech impediment, but it didn't stop him firing off fusillades of foul language when his beloved Taradale Club was bad mouthed by Clive, MAC or Tamatea supporters! He'd go beserk, ready to knock anyone's block off, but he enjoyed a good, belly-rumbling laugh a split second later.
Blue Nelio had arms like pumpkins, and a body like the Incredible Hulk. He played rugby, then league for every club in Hawke's Bay, and he was a great player, but you had to turn him around at halftime. He loved acting the goat, whether he was under the influence or otherwise, he was a constant source of irritation or amusement for everyone, because you didn't know which 'Blue' was going to turn up on the day!
Big Len Ngataki was a mountain of a man from the Waikato, weighing in at 25 stone and standing 6ft 5 inches in his socks, with not an ounce of fat on him. He was connected closely to Te Ataarangi Kahu, the Māori Queen, and the Kingitanga movement.
His daughter and son worked there as well. He was a hunter-gatherer, a diver, puha picker, and played rugby for Tamatea. I was his half-back and everyone feared him on the field, except he never played to his full potential unless he was wild.
In one game, I poked him in the eye by accident, and he retaliated against the opposition so bad that we won the game by heaps! Basil Whatarau, our captain, told me to poke him in the eye for every game, and we won the next four games on the trot, and then went on to win the competition. Len never found out, thank goodness!
Tom Martin was the smallest man on the chain, with the biggest opinion about everything, especially himself! His cultured voice carried far beyond his chain to reach the ears of those who were quite a distance away.
"You know boy," he said to me one day when we were pelting together and he was pointing at Len Ngataki, "You see that fine specimen of a man over there?" "Yes," I said.
Then Tom said, "Well, he and I went hunting last week, and I shot a 12-pointer stag about a kilometre away in a gully from our truck. After gutting it, the dogs got onto a pig, so then we have a 40kg sow as well. Big Len says to me, 'give me the stag and you take the pig and you bring the guns a quarter way up the gully'.
"Big Len then stops and says to me, 'Tom, you take the pig', so I did, with the guns and I kept going. Further up, Big Len stops and says 'Tom, swap you the pig for the stag', which was about 100kg. So we swap because you don't argue with Big Len! Half way up, Big Len stops again and says, 'give me the guns, you take the pig too'. So here I am, 9 stone, 5ft 4 inches, with a 100kg stag, and a 40kg pig, climbing up this steep embankment, when Big Len who's strong as an ox, stops once more and hands me the guns too! Big Len, what a man!" he says loud enough for Len to hear him without the rest of the story.
"He would have swotted both of us with one mitt the size of a shovel!"
Big Len and Darkie Unahi were keen fishermen as well. One day, Darkie asked Big Len, "how many holes in a fishing net?", and he was pelted with heaps of answers, which Len shook his head to all of them. "628," Big Len finally offered.
"How come?" was the question that came back.
"Because my net had a fish in every hole, and there were 628 of them!" he replied, which we all haw-hawed at. You could hear Big Len's laughter all the way home!
■Ngahiwi Tomoana is chairman of Ngati Kahungunu iwi Inc
■NEXT WEEK: One Out, All Out!