'Ah, e mokopuna, the world may change but I will go on forever and ever, for how can I die if nobody knows when I was born? And this place of the willows, it too will live on and on because it is me and it is a place where spirits of fire and air, of water and earth, have haven. A te, a te la florida messe dai grembi.'
The matriarch held her arms out to the child. Silhouetted against the skyline Tiana watched as he was embraced by the shades which inhabited the sanctuary only the matriarch could enter. The tapu place. The place of sacredness. The place of the willows. The source of the power.
The child saw his mother like a dark presence waiting at the rim of the world.
'He will never be yours' Tiana vowed.
The Matriarch (425).
The University of Auckland has an excellent bibliography, anlong with a list of reviews and other secondary sources
An Ihimaera poem called "Dinner with the Cannibal"
The Commonwealth Institute has a good list of secondary sources
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