Whitey

There were not too many white people left, if any. Not real white anyway.

There used to be before the Edict was enforced.

Nowadays the only way to sight them was in a circus somewhere, or in the nearest museum where their atrophied carcasses were on permanent view in the history collection. And everybody knows that circus acts are bullshit.

There were the usual rumours and urban myths that some few Whiteys were in the bush somewhere, maybe even underground but I reckon that’s exactly what I said—a pack of crap. The Hue Police were pretty good at tracking down any suspects, and there was always the informer line set up by the global government to dob in anyone, anything approaching real white.

Mind you, some of the folk I saw around town still looked a bit paler than the rest of us. I guess they had to carry their papers around at all times, to prove their DNA was mixed blood, that they were more than one ethnicity, like everyone else. And when I was in school all those years ago there were a couple of kids in our class who were always having to show their credentials as it were, by photocopying their Ethnic Proof papers and sharing them with us doubters, until they scanned the QR codes and came up Hybrid. Unless they did that, we gave them a hard time.

So, I was amazed when I saw that white guy when Leti and I went out into the bush surrounding our place last weekend for a few days. At least I believe he was a real Whitey. 

We went quite deep into the native forest around our rural property on the Coast because we knew where the best kai was. No one else knew of our patch, unless you count our kids, if they still remembered. In fact, we even had a bit of a hassle re-discovering it ourselves, as it had been months since we were last out there.

We unloaded our stuff into the old hut Leti’s father had built way back, and—as I was getting the wood stove ready to cook up a meal—she said something about, ‘Someone’s been here.’

I was a bit startled, because who the hell would have even known about this spot, unless it was sheer fluke?

‘Whaddaya talking about,’ I muttered, not even turning around to look at her.

‘Look at this,’ she said.

I turned. There was a wooden comb in her hand, which was no big deal as we all went that way when plastic was banned. But those blonde hairs stuck in the tines of that comb had me gawking, with my eyes like clichéd saucers. Bigger even maybe.

I went over to Leti and touched the hairs gently. I wanted to make sure they were not plant-based or twine or something.

‘Shit,’ I said. Because no one we knew had blonde hair anywhere on their body. We had been led to believe that such a feature had been genetically weeded out fairly soon after the Edict was confirmed. 

It was not ancient human hair either, because it was not there when we had come to the hut previously.

Some Whitey—maybe—had been inside our hut, on our land, trespassing on mixed-blood territory. Which was everywhere these days anyway. Inevitably, of course, because only mixed-blood could own land.

We looked at one another. We peered even more closely at these threads in the comb. It was hair all right. I had seen this stuff on television in a documentary about Whiteys. You know the one—all about how a few years ago, well quite a few years ago now I guess, back in my grandparents’ time—the Edict came out stating that everyone had to be of mixed blood. No more pure-breed stuff. Didn’t matter which ethnicities an individual was made up from, just as long as they were mixed-blood.

Of course there was an outcry. But no one had a choice. If you didn’t want to interbreed you were sterilised in those Conquer Clinics. If you joined those fleeting uprisings in the cities, you were soon incarcerated and neutered regardless. And your kids were put into homes until they were old enough to interbreed by themselves.

Pretty soon many were searching out another blood to breed with, given that half the country was already muddled up ethnically before the Edict.

Leti and I were both fine as our parents were a mixture of tangata whenua and tauiwi anyway. So, our kids were fine as well. It was our parents’ remaining white friends who had to pledge that their mokopuna would not be the same as them. I recall that the documentary stated that these friends would be allowed to live out their own ‘natural life’ whatever that meant, but it did not take so long before you could travel around and see fewer and fewer of them. Initially some fled overseas somewhere and rumour had it that several were still around here but we never saw any sign of them in our part of the country.

Except for just now maybe.

I went back to fixing the fire and preparing some food. No electricity wires out here, must have been one of the last places on Earth to still be like that. Unconnected to the universal grid. And, because everybody had to have solar panels on their homes, up here, we had just enough sun to give us a bit of a charge for our mobiles. Leti and I liked things that way. Fresh water creek even further into the bush behind us and our own wild herb patch nearby that.

It was only after we ate that Leti asked me, ‘Well, whose hair is that?’ and I just shrugged my shoulders. I thought for a minute or two and replied, ‘I can’t see how any Whitey—even if it is one—could survive out here. And I can’t see how one could have even got here without being seen.’

Truth was, I wanted to sleep. It had been quite a rugged journey even getting to the hut, and it was hot. And I was well-fed. The last thing I could be bothered about was the thought of some stray Whitey. I mean, let’s all face it, our country had become so much more peaceful now everyone was a mixed-blood. No more ethnic conflict and hysterical historical claims. Same as what happened overseas we were led to believe. And now that on arrival, all tourists had to take their Ethnic Proof papers into the Visitor Lodge and remain there until their papers checked out, none of them could ‘accidentally’ remain behind their tour group departure. No approved papers, no tour. There was no prospect of slippage back into those dim days of raging racial disharmony whereby different ethnicities often meant discord and violence. Though my dear mum and dad had sometimes shared their tales of such when either of them had too much of their home-grown cider to drink.

It must have been about two mornings afterwards that Leti and I were trudging back from up the hill after visiting our herb patch and spending a while clearing away unwanted weeds—like that bloody marijuana plant which wanted to take over everything—that I got a glimpse of movement in front of us. The bushes were moving and there was no wind around. Nor animals as far as we knew. 

We stood still, because Leti had motioned to me that she had sighted something too.

Yes, it was moving slowly away to our left, roughly in the direction of our hut. It must have been quite tall, whatever it was, because the crest of the motion was like a large wave rather than a small ripple in the vegetation.

We were intrigued, and cautiously began to follow the flow. I knew that we were getting closer and closer to the hut even although we were no longer on our usual path, because here the vegetation became stunted and more sparse.

We must have been much quicker than whatever it was up ahead of us, because we could now distinctly hear the twigs snapping back and underfoot and could see large swathes of leaves and branches moving in unison.

Then I saw it. Tall, must have been well over six feet something, slim to skinny, near naked. I pointed towards what I saw, to show Leti, but I think she missed what I glimpsed.

It was white. Verging on what I assumed an albino to be, never having seen one in my lifetime, and I am a pensioner of course. Been around quite a while myself.

It—let’s call it a Whitey—had serious blonde hair too. Quite long. Whitey was carrying some sort of bag. It kept hitting him—yes, he was definitely a man—on his own knees every step or so. Had no footwear on either.

But what really grabbed me—and Leti too now because she whispered, ‘Did you see that?’ to me soon after we began our following, was all the tattoos on the white skin. They were pretty faded and I could not make out what they represented. Covered much of his surface. Must have been pretty old ones too, because—let’s face it—there was no place nowadays where a Whitey could go and get tattoos. If there were even any Whiteys.

Yet, there did seem to be one just up ahead. He was singing too, or to my ears it sounded like singing. In some tongue I did not know, although some of his words sounded vaguely familiar. Maybe I had heard them read out by our history teacher over fifty years ago, I am not sure. Memories fade after time. I did recall learning though, that the Whiteys had their own distinctive language and I do remember as a young child still seeing faded billboards in our country town written in a script I was never taught at home, or school.

We caught up with the man because he must have—finally—sensed something was directly behind him. He stopped, turned around, ceased his singing, if that was what it was. For a couple of seconds it seemed as if he was going to rush deep into the surrounding bush, but he didn’t.

The three of us stared at one another, well I didn’t stare at Leti of course, but we sure gazed at this Whitey. I mean he had to be a Whitey because of his hue. No one I knew was his colour, or lack of colour. No one I had ever seen, even on the plasma television our neighbour had, or online. Never in the movies, even those stupid superhero ones they used to make.

I said ‘hello’ but there was no response. I waved my hand at him, trying to be friendly. Leti was smiling.

Nothing. He continued to look at us, clutching his bag tightly.

I repeated myself. ‘Hello’ meant nothing to him.

Leti reached into the sack she was carrying and drew out an edible plant that we had dug up back in our patch. She made eating motions and stretched out her hand with the plant in it.

Whitey took it and sniffed at it, before starting to chew on it, more voraciously the further he went.

It was easy to see he was close to starving, not only because he gorged the food, but because he looked the part. I could see his ribs, and his arms and legs were particularly thin.

What next? 

I would love to be able to say that we finally got to communicate, or that we all went back to our hut together and had a feast.

None of that happy ending stuff here.

In fact I pointed towards our hut and shook my head. I was trying to make clear Whitey was not welcome there. That seemed to be something he did understand, for he turned away from that direction and started to move away back up into the hills above us. Maybe he had a base somewhere way up there, I don’t know because none of us went up that far. Not even our hunters. Too hard to get to, too dangerous to manoeuvre in once you did get there. Besides, that area was sacred for us. If you didn’t utter the right prayer first, chances are you wouldn’t come back.

I wasn’t going to prevent the Whitey going up there though. I thought that by the look of him he didn’t have much time left anyway, which Leti also thought when she and I talked about our afternoon meeting, after we had the wood stove going and were cooking up a feed.

‘I feel a bit sorry for him,’ she said as she stirred the soup.

I just nodded. ‘Yeah, let’s just leave him be. Not doing anyone any harm.’

‘You won’t report him to the Hue Police?’

‘Nah, no one would believe us anyway. I mean can you imagine being laughed at because we said we saw a Whitey? Not worth it. Let him die in peace, like all the others. I reckon he is even older than us.’

Leti just stirred the soup for a while. ‘I wonder how he even got there,’ she mused. But I had no cogent answers. Nothing about that Whitey made any sense. Maybe there were a few out there, still surviving as best they could. Maybe some had dribbled into our homeland on a boat somehow years ago. Somewhere. Good luck to them if they had—they weren’t causing us any problems. Not anymore anyway.

Besides, I was already daydreaming about us going fishing when we returned home, in a couple of days.

Later, she said, ‘I remember my mother saying something about smoothing down their dying pillows.’

I think she said that, but maybe I was already asleep.

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Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Te Whiti) commutes between homes in Hong Kong, Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Māori and English. He is the author and editor/co-editor of well over 40 books.