Ballad Of Baker McLean

Edward Baker McLean (they say) was sent
to study law. He didn’t care for law,
he dropped out.
Edward Baker McLean was
a bastard, he was a half-caste.
They said, his father was big in Government
in Auckland. You catch
the nod the wink the nudge
the hint? You caught the name? Actually
it’s not likely Donald McLean was his dad.

Edward Baker McLean was Peka Makarini.
He went to the Chathams. He came back with Te Kooti.
He was ‘the greatest of ruffians and Te Kooti’s
best fighting man’.
Gilbert Mair shot him, not far from Rotorua.

This is the end of the first part of
the Ballad of Baker McLean.

Two of Mair’s patrol men tied the body to a tree.
Nature didn’t do the rest.

One wild and bitter night (that’s how Mair tells it)
at the Rokokakahi base camp two years later
it was cry Alarm! Turn out the guard!
to hunt and capture
one elderly famished half
frozen man, sent all the way from Mohaka
to desecrate the body of Peka Makarini.
Out of the night a tohunga, there’s
a frisson for you to add to cold and wicked winds.
One hundred and fifty winter miles,
to Napier, Napier to Taupo, Taupo
to Rotokakahi.
They warmed him, fed him,
helped him get his strength up,
eventually led him, "There now, that’s Peka,"
and left him to pick the bones over.

This is the end of the second part of
the Ballad of Baker McLean.

Of the bones were made
fish hooks, birds’
leg rings, charms and

wrapped in cloaks, a parcel,
a narrow strip of calico steeped in red ochre
nearly a hundred feet long.
Unwrap the parcel:
a bone from the right arm of Peka Makarini
as used to be. Now it was a flute
plugged with a tightly rolled
old paper collar, with a message:
‘A token of affection from Ngati Pahauwera . . .’
This is the end of the third part of
the Ballad of Baker McLean.

The last part of the ballad is
what the flute said:

and that is the end of
the Ballad of Baker McLean.