Solomon's Song by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online

of an ancient time when a great and wise king whose name was Solomon married a black Queen of Sheba, a woman of exquisite beauty, and how forever thereafter each generation produced two sons, one black and the other white, a giant and a small man, so people might know that small men and big, black and white, have an equal part in life. At this remark the mourners look to Hawk who stands at seven feet tall, the magnificent General Hawk, their beloved Black Maori, and then at the diminutive body of Tommo, whereupon a fresh wailing commences which causes the orator to stop until he may be heard again. He describes Tommo’s exploits in the great battle of Puke Te Kauere where Tommo got the wound that has brought about his death. He even makes the mourners laugh a moment when he tells of how Tommo was saved in the swamp water by having his head against the great arse of a dead British soldier. He goes on to explain that Tommo’s ancestor, Icky Slomon, sits on the Council of the Dead as a Maori ancestor and that his advice is no doubt much respected by the ancestors.
    Hawk thinks of poor old Ikey sitting among the Maori chiefs of the past where the luxury of roast pork is the daily fare, ‘my dear-ing’ them with every sentence and trying to teach them the intricacies of cribbage and the Jewish perspective of seeing every point of view in an argument and so defeating it with commonsense.
    There is much wailing and nose mucus as the mourners show their appreciation for the dead Tommo Te Mokiri who has left them his seed in the form of the Princess Hinetitama, an infant to be brought up in the Maori tradition in the household of Chief Tamihana.
    While Chief Tamihana and his tohunga, the priests, do not allow the supreme honour of a chief, that Tommo’s heart be cut out and buried separately in a sacred place, forever tapu, so that any person who approaches the place of its burial will meet with certain death, they agree that his body may be placed high up in one of the tallest trees in the forest where it will remain until all the flesh has fallen from him. After the women have cleaned his bones and skull, they will be placed in a cave looking to the west where he can forever greet the morning sun.
    Hawk remains a further fortnight during which time he takes a Maori ketch to Auckland and interviews several land agents until he finds an American with the improbable name of Geronimo Septimus Thompson, who he believes he might trust. Using the five pound notes in Mr Sparrow’s stash he opens a letter of credit with the Bank of New South Wales in Auckland and, visiting the Government Surveyor’s office, he studies the land titles abutting the Ngati Haua tribal lands. He instructs Geronimo Thompson to buy out the small farms surrounding it.
    ‘You will offer two times what the property is worth,’ Hawk tells him, ‘and allow six months or the next crop to come to the landowner before he must vacate. The name of the buyer must never be known, Mr Thompson, do you understand me?’
    ‘But how much shall I buy?’ asks the bemused Thompson. ‘Is there a limit? Five thousand acres? More? Farmland only?’
    ‘You must buy everything, valleys, fields, forests, hills, mountains, rivers and streams. If you can find a way to deal with the Almighty I wish you to buy the sky as well,’ Hawk instructs him, but then cautions Thompson, ‘The parcel must be clean, there can be no farms left unvacated in any part of the land you buy except at its perimeters. I shall return in a year and instruct you further.’
    ‘But, but…’ Thompson splutters, ’such an undertaking will attract attention, if I have no name for the purchaser, how shall I answer?’
    ‘You will buy the land in the name of the Bank of New South Wales and they will hold the titles.’ By doing this Hawk has prevented any possibility of Thompson cheating him.
    Hawk returns to the tribe and informs Chief Tamihana that he must return at once to Australia. The old chief