#tuai

Sama hal nya dengan melepaskan. Jangan-jangan kita bukan kehilangan, tapi justru cara menuai sesuatu yang lebih baik lagi.

Hari ini melepaskan seseorang, bisa jadi esok hari dikejar seserang. Hari ini melepaskan dunia, jangan kaget kemudian hari justru dikejar dunia.

La Coquille came to anchor off the island of Moturua, near Pāroa. The vessel was greeted — as were all newly arriving ships — by dozens of Ngare Raumati men, women and children, some of whom, the French reported, were dressed in “dirty European clothes they may have procured from [whaling] ships”

The people were eager to explore the French ship and to trade for gunpowder and anything else that caught their interest. Large nails, ground by the sailors on a grindstone to make good chisels, were popular items.

The French officers tried in vain to stop the cheerful crowds from clambering up the sides of La Coquille from their canoes and coming on board: “They climbed up on all sides and when we pushed them back they stood still and waited until we lost patience.” Vying for the attention of Duperrey, the ship’s commander, one or two men assured him they were “nue nue rangatira”.

Dressed in formal European clothes (his previous assertion to Henry Williams was either a falsehood, or he had acquired new garments), Tuai soon came on board. His appearance astonished the French officers. His face was fully tattooed; strands of his long black hair, tied up on his head, hung down around his face; yet his manners, his speech and the way he moved all seemed to suggest an Englishman.

Jules Dumont d’Urville, the ship’s chief lieutenant, thought at first he was “an Englishman who had settled in New Zealand and had been tattooed, as sometimes happens”. Tuai introduced himself as the brother of Korokoro, and explained that he had been to England.

René Primevère Lesson, the naval surgeon on La Coquille, described Tuai as of average height and about thirty years old “as far as I can tell under the tattoo which forms a mask on his face”. Tuai was rather formal compared with his compatriots, and Lesson thought he gained authority from being able to speak English.

NYK/NÖKKEN/NYKKJEN/NØKK

An omen for drowning.

A mysterious water creature who lures people to their deaths. He is sometimes a beautiful young man who tricks women into jumping into the pond where he then drowns him. However majority of the time he is seen as a monstrous creature with eyes watching just above the water surface.

Here he is surrounded by water lilies, however in Scandinavia these are known and ‘Nix Roses’ after a tale from the forest of ‘Tiveden’ about a man who tries to give his only daughter away to a Nøkk in return for great hauls of fish. The daughter refuses to be given away and instead stabs herself to death, staining the water lilies red.

In other stories you could bring the creature a treat of one or more of several things…

Three drops of blood

A black animal

Some Brännvin – Scandinavian vodka.

He is also a shapeshifter….    

CHANGELING

The changeling is linked to the Huldra. When the Huldra steals a child, she would replace it with a changeling – a sort of monster child. It looks pretty much identical to a normal baby, but signs that it’s not are:

Excessive crying, refusing to speak/learn to speak, ugly, won’t grow, over-eats.

You can prevent your child being replaced by a changeling by baptising it, putting a piece of metal in the cradle or carving a cross on the cradle headboard.

If it is too late and your child has already been replaced, you can get the huldra to take back the changeling by treating it badly or taking it to get baptised.

FOSSEGRIM

Another strange water creature, the Fossegrim is a naked young man who sits underneath waterfalls and plays the sound of nature on his fiddle: the sound of water or the wind in the trees.

HULDRA

A Deceptively beautiful woman who had bark and tree like features on her back and the tail of a cow. They often lured people to their homes, either to marry them or kill them.

She is also linked to Adam and Eves children…

Adam and Eve had lots of children and one day Eve was washing them. God came to visit and so she hid the dirty children. God asked if there were more children and Eve said no. God said ‘Let all that is hidden remain hidden’. The hidden children became ‘De Underjordiske’, ‘the ones living underground’.

Huldra is said to be one of these hidden children who escaped and managed to stay above ground.

She is flirtatious and neither good nor evil. However, they are known to sometimes steal children…

CHURCH LAMB.

The first founders of Christian churches in Scandinavia would bury a lamb at the alter – a church lamb. The lamb is meant to represent Christ and if you were to attend the church when there wasn’t a service you might see the lamb. If you did, it often meant a child was going to die.

PROTECTION FROM NYK

You could protect yourself from the Nyk in a few ways.

Either you could throw a needle or a steel cross in the water or you could sing a riddle.

The riddle in the picture translates as:

“ Nyk! Nyk! Needle in the water! The virgin Mary threw steel in the water! You are sinking, I float!”