The Pirates' Conquest

In Weitiki Valley, almost everyone is a descendant of the Inland Pirates. Our great-great-grandparents sailed along the glacial river, burned their thieving boats, and then moved inland to meet the locals. The Moa were a peaceful, stationary people who killed only one another. And then our pirate forebears arrived, swilling brandy and sneezing mainland diseases all over them. "The Pirates' Conquest" is a tribute to those invaders, performed every year at the Winter Concert. It's our local anthem, these squirrelly arpeggios that celebrate our forebears' every offense. Verse one: The quick extinction of the Moa's sacred red penguins. Verse two: The depletion of their greenstone quarries. Verse three: The invasion of their mothers' bodies. And what did we bring the Moa in return? Grog and possums. Quail pox. Whores. These are weird things to harmonize about.

Russell, Karen. "Accident Brief." The New Yorker, June 19, 2006.