Book Review: Christina Thompson’s ‘Come On Shore And We Will Kill And Eat You All’

Twenty or so years ago, a small and comely twentysomething blond American stopped over in New Zealand on the way from her hometown of Boston to graduate school in Australia. She ended up spending an evening in a pub near Auckland where she met a group of Maoris and so liked what she saw — the country in general and a hulkingly handsome Maori by the name of Seven in particular — that it eventually would lead her to write one of the most unusual travelogue and history books of the many that I have read.

The blond was Christina Thompson and the book is the recently published Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All.

Thompson’s accomplishment is no small feat because she didn’t stay in New Zealand nor ever lived there. As it was, there were several instances where I found myself learning more than I wanted to know about she and Seven (so named because he was the seventh of 10 children), with whom she shacked up before marrying and having children.

But just when I would become frustrated I turned the page and Thompson gobsmacked me with a penetrating observation about the effects of colonization on the Maori, as well as how even the most well read of us pretty much consistently misunderstand these people best known in the popular American imagination for a single movie — Whale Rider — and the beautifully ornate facial tattoos of their ancestors.

Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.