CHAPTER TWO:
1869
DOG & BONE
In 1869, savage lives were cheap and colonial greed reigned supreme.
The second Taranaki Land Wars saw vicious fighting in the north, while officials in Wellington used the power of public perception as a weapon that changed Aotearoa New Zealand’s race relations forever.
Get your front row seat to see the unusual specimens in the second chapter of UNDERTOW - DOG & BONE.
It’s 1869 at the bottom of the world
The British Army gone and left
Māori and Pākehā to fight it out.
The Māori kurī, like its master,
an inferior, ugly, savage animal
not to be given an inch… or a bone.
Tāiki and Kurītea Kenning are brothers with the same dream - peace and security for their home of Te Miti. Being on opposing sides of the war, they have very different ideas on how to achieve it however.
Tāiki and his new wife Hannah-May are ready to start a family at the Te Miti homestead. Compelled to act as scout for the British Constabulary to keep their home safe, Tāiki must fight the battle of smiles and pleasantries in Wellington with those who covet every blade of grass on his land.
Hannah-May is torn between her Māori husband and her English father, William Beamish - a man of Government and progress who has committed many wrongs in the name of Queen and Country.
Kurītea has joined the notorious and fierce fighter Titokowaru in Taranaki, to fight off the ruthless landeaters. Warned by the words of a matakite, he returns to the homestead with a pack of strange dogs, to save his brother and his home.
As the wolves close in on them, the Kenning family must decide where their loyalties lie. In war there must be winners and losers, and someone left to write the history books.