Song of the Stone

SONG of the STONE

Barry Brailsford

Song of the Stone

Copyright 2008 Barry Brailsford

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of StonePrint Press.

StonePrint Press, New Zealand. www.stoneprint.co.nz

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Cover Design: Renzie Hanham

Ebook conversion of text and cover: Peter Harris www.ebookuploader.com

SMASHWORDS EDITION 1, September 2012

DEDICATION

To the ancestors who walked with wisdom and courage to keep the dream of peace alive; to all who honor the circle, to my family, to friends who walked the trails with me; to the spirit of the stone and its carvers and keepers; to the song of the stone and the hope we may learn to hear the music of the land.

GUIDANCE

The kaumatua and kuia, who are guardians of the old knowledge, have kindly given direction to my words by asking that the sacred places and the bones of the ancestors remain hidden, that the old lore still wrapped in the baskets of knowledge remain unopened and that the wisdom keepers and the families remain in the shadows.

We are shaped by the touch of stone and fire to reach beyond ourselves.

Ka hihi

Ka kori

Ka puawai

Ka whakara e

Toku hine ngaro

Hei whaka mana ai

Oku whakaro

Ko te pouri tonu

Ko te po o te kori

Ka tipu tonu mai

Te haeata, ki t e Rawiti

Ko te po o te Awatea

Mai i te Ao Marama

Ka tu te Ao

Ka piki te Ra

Ki te Rangi

Tihei mauri ora!

Every stone on the journey and all the waters, forests and mountains along the way have heard the sound and mystery of this prayer. It is a gift from Waitaha, an ancient treasure given into my keeping for the trails. I thank them for trusting me to carry it to the world.

Seeds crack open

Beneath the Earth

And roots grow

Shoots push through

As does the mind

Leaving darkness behind

Seasons turn

Bright the Moon

Joining all with the Universe

Central Sun - Sky Father

Light

Awakening Spirit

Life

(Poetic translation)

Te Hei Mauri Ora

Ko Barry Brailsford

Ko Tuhua te maunga

Ko Mawhera te awa

Ko Te Aka Aka o Poutini te marae

Ko Rakaihautu te tupuna

Ko Waitaha te iwi

My name is Barry Brailsford

My mountain is Tuhua

My river is Mawhera

My marae is Te Aka Aka o Poutini

My ancestor is Rakaihautu

And Waitaha is my iwi

"And you Barry

Kia ora koe.

You have been chosen to write the record of our ancestors and tell the story of Waitaha because of your skill and the awhi you gave the people of Ngai Tahu during the Tribunal hearings. This is not the easiest of tasks because of the things that have been hidden away from the majority of the people. People will ridicule all the things you say and do in the name of Waitaha.

If you accept the task you must first return to the old trails, for they belong to the people of Waitaha. You have already written of the greenstone trails. It is not going to be easy for you to go back onto the trails, but they will be opened again and the numbers will be from the old Wananga.

Be humble, listen to the land, listen to those who will guide you through the land.

For every rule of the Wananga that is broken by you, there is a required payment. It is a dangerous journey, it is a hard journey, you must walk it as a student.

Do not confuse the old world with the new. Write what you learn and hear in peace and love.

Learn humility and love, go in peace. Carry your cross well for it is a heavy cross that you bear."

Te Pani Manawatu at Tuahiwi, 1988

Chief of Tuahuriri Ngai Tahu

Contents

Introduction

Journeys on Five Trails:

1 The Trail of the Hawk

2 The Trail of the Deer

3 The Trail of the Eagle

4 The Trail of the Snake

5 The Trail of the Tuatara

Glossary of Maori Words

Acknowledgements

Books by Barry Brailsford

Five trails opened to the sacred stone

and each was walked with a companion

from the animal realms.

Introduction

Why a new edition?

What prompts this return to the words written a decade ago? The intent of the original book stands, for it was written to share the story of the people of peace who settled New Zealand long ago. Yet, it was more than that. While it revealed how the sacred lore of the ancestors was brought into the light of day in the book Song of Waitaha, it also told of journeys with stone to the nations of the world. It opened doors into the mystery, to the realms of spirit and underlying truths shared by the wisdom keepers of many lands.

When I opened the ancient stone trail over the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand, I had no idea that trail ultimately spanned the planet. Why take the sacred stone of this land to North America? Why continue on in later days to reach out with it to Europe? And after those journeys why was I told to see that stone carriers gifted it to every nation and placed it in the most remote of lands?

These questions deserve answers for it is time to see this world of ours in ways that reach far beyond state borders, barriers of the mind and smallness of spirit. Time to bring the old wisdom and old stories into a new space.

What does the story told within these pages offer the future? What gives the words and the story credence? Not the writer, nor the way the sentences are structured and the words woven. Those things are nothing on their own. It’s the people, the power of the people walking through the pages, the ancestors of yesterday and the families of today.

They are the keepers of a great mystery, a power bound in contradictions - their strength arises from gentleness, their courage stems from the willingness to withhold the blow, their wisdom grows from a humility that says let’s just listen and wait because sometimes we just don’t know.

They believe words are sacred; there are no swearwords in their language. They seek truth, seeing no advantage in lies and deceit - they hold fast to justice, seeing corruption of the spirit in the unjust - they embrace love, knowing the desolation of the unloved - they offer kindness, understanding the wounded soul of the abused and betrayed - they soar to the freedom of mind, heart and spirit, being slave to no one or anything.

Meet them in an old name, meet them as Waitaha, the water carriers, the life givers of long ago. They created a nation of many peoples who lived together in peace, and in harmony with the land. Meet them and see if their song is your song, if their ways and their story is part of your remembering, your seeking and your journey.

Who are Waitaha?

Today the indigenous people of New Zealand are called Maori, The name Maori was bestowed on them when Britain colonized these islands; a convenient word to be thrown over the many tribes of the land by the administrators of the day.

When Maori stand in ceremony to announce their presence, they name their mountain, their river and their tribe. They do not stand and say, ‘I am Maori.’ Their tribe always comes first.

Waitaha was a nation, an ancient gathering of many peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. That nation, founded in the ways of peace, was swept aside by invading warrior tribes several hundred years ago. Yet, when it was destroyed, the sacred knowledge it had cradled for fifteen hundred years did not die. The women who survived carried it into the new tribes.

In this new edition much that was hidden within the shadows now stands revealed. The ancient Waitaha Prophecy that came to pass in 1990 now walks on the world stage.

The Waitaha Prophecy

The arrival of Song of Waitaha was written in the stars centuries ago. When warrior tribes sailed out of the Pacific to invade Aotearoa New Zealand, Waitaha met them with cloaks of peace — to take the life of another was to destroy your own. So Waitaha refused to take up weapons even though they vastly outnumbered the invaders. That does not mean they did not resist, for they understood the power of the mind, the heart and the spirit to overcome violence. However in the end, when the anger of the warriors would not be turned aside, Waitaha remained true to the path of peace. They believed that how they lived was more important than how they died. So when the time came they gathered into family circles, hand holding hand, to take the deathblow.

Words of hope sounded through the land as the Nation fell. The old ones, the wisdom keepers, spoke of wondrous days that would come to pass in a distant time. This hope was seeded in the stars, chanted into a ‘foretelling’ that would see two powerful stars align in a unique way. That ‘marriage of the stars’ would announce the beginning of a new era, a time when the old wisdom would be shared with the world and the way open for the people of peace to stand tall again.

The First Part of the Prophecy

The ‘Foretelling’ did not guarantee anything. The prophecy merely offered an opportunity, for while it opened doors of great potential; we had to walk through them. In 1988 when the elders saw the stars moving to align, they called on me to prepare to write the old lore, to bring into the light what was hidden for countless years. I had no idea what this might mean or where it might lead. It completely changed my life.

The ‘marriage of the stars’ occurred in January 1990, and allowed Waitaha to share their sacred knowledge with the world in the pages of Song of Waitaha. This call to record the sacred knowledge set me on five journeys that opened old trails and spanned the planet. Each journey was but a step on the way to the writing and release of this knowledge in the book.

The first journey took me to the Rakaia River in the South Island of New Zealand late in 1988. There I was initiated into the Nation in accordance with ancient ritual, and set on a path that saw me lead eleven others across the high passes of the ancient Peace Trail that traversed the Southern Alps of New Zealand. We lifted a tapu that had closed the way for over a century and carried pounamu, the healing stone of the Nation, across the old trail. All this was done to prepare the way for me to be taken deeper and deeper into the ancient pools of knowledge that would begin to flow strongly into the writing of Song of Waitaha as the stars came together.

The next journey was to lay the manuscript on the red earth in the Southwest of North America in May 1991. I slept beside the manuscript in Canyon Lands after many challenges within the world of the Native American shaman. I came to ask the ancestors of the First Nations if the old lore might now be shared. However, I did not meet with any of their descendants on this journey.

The third journey took me back to North America in 1992 to carry our sacred stone to twelve First Nation peoples. Their emissary, Wallace Black Elk, had just traveled to Aotearoa New Zealand to open the way. My task was to carry pounamu, the healing stone of my land, to help mend the sacred hoop that had been broken. Thus the dream founded in Waitaha was shared with those who walked the ancient ways and carried old lore.

The fourth journey was to the standing stones of Europe, to Stonehenge, New Grange and the Rath of Tara in 1994, before Song of Waitaha was released. Again, it was to acknowledge those who held the old ways close and to pay homage to the ancestors.

The last journey was the hardest of all, the journey within myself. Without it nothing was possible.

Thus was one part of the prophecy fulfilled. The sacred knowledge of Waitaha was being shared with the world. But what of the other door that opened in 1990?

The Second Part of the Prophecy

The ancestors foretold that the joining of the stars opened the way for the people of peace to walk tall again. It heralded an age of hope, a time when nurture and compassion replaced aggression and hate. It offered another path if we were ready to walk it — a window of hope.

The 1990s mark a watershed in the history of humankind. We see the beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa and Nelson Mandela released from his prison cell of 27 years to become the president of his nation. We see Gorbachev dismantle the great Soviet monolith of absolute power without a bloody revolution— the Eastern European nations cast aside the yoke of communism and the German people destroy the Berlin Wall. The Cold War ends. Russian technicians enter the secret nuclear silos in the USA to help dismantle the warheads and American technicians do the same in Siberia. We step back from Armageddon.

The Waitaha Prophecy Does Not Stand Alone

Many of the indigenous peoples now share their hidden lore with others. This sharing is seen by the Waitaha elders as part of this Age of the Returning. This is the time for humanity to bring the industrial and technological revolutions into balance with the natural world. The elders believe the old wisdom has a place alongside the new, that the old chants that hold the sacred lore are but the computers of an ancient age that can be accessed by the new. They say there are ancient databases that will help us create a wonderful future for all the peoples of the planet.

This is a remarkable age. The decades following 1990 encompass many ancient prophecies; the beginning of the new era predicted in the ancient Mayan Calendar; the Tao understanding that we are at the end of the Age of Gurus, that we are now our own teachers, each responsible for our own journey.

Two prophecies stand tall in North America. The Hopi Nation of Arizona gifts the first. Their 4000 year-old message carved in stone has reached its end and brings each of us to the time of choosing. They say we have to decide if we are going to be of the ‘one-hearted people’, those who walk in truth. They believe those of one-heart will save humanity and the planet. The other prophecy is the birthing of the white buffalo calf. This was announced in the late 1800s when the First Nations were broken. As we know the calf was born in Wisconsin in 1994. Its arrival sent a message to the nations, an invitation to once again walk the true red trail of spirit. The elders of the First Nations see the calf as a symbol of the power of the Age of the Returning. They see it as a mark of the end of separation of the peoples of the planet, and they say that those who have the resources and the energy to bring all into balance now have the opportunity to do so.

For thousands of years the indigenous peoples have nurtured the sacred. They have honored the land, the waters and the children of all the realms of life. Their dream is that all peoples will do the same and bring peace to all the nations.

The Waitaha story speaks of a Nation that walked the realms of the higher mind, tapped into the stream of ultimate awareness and created a wonderful vision of how the world might be. They did it, walked it, held the vision high for fifteen hundred years and said, if we can so can you and I.

The TRAIL of the HAWK

The Awakening Spirit

The smallest spark gives life to fire

I share my story and all that gathers to it. Yet, as I write it is difficult to know its true beginning. For this is a story of the awakening spirit. It speaks of the wairua, the spirit that moved to awaken an ancient Nation, of old prophecies fulfilled, of people of peace walking tall again. It touches the realms of the mystical where the words ‘coincidence’ and ‘accident’ are put aside. It says that little happens by chance.

For some years I thought the long journey that brought me to the sacred knowledge of the old tribes began in Te Kaha in 1970. It was there that Rusty, an elder of TeWhanau a Apanui tribe, fired a dart into my heart. Not the feathered kind with iron tip, but the traditional challenge thrown by a Maori wisdom keeper and it cuts deeper.

Newfound friends, we were partners on the pool table and held it for an hour. I was passing through, a guest at the hotel for the night. Tomorrow I’d work with young teachers in the local school. Rusty was old, skilled in the game and great