when does Koro Apirana leave

In the first section, Kahu was born as the savior of her people, though they took long enough to realize. Upon her birth, Koro Apirana—her father’s grandfather—called out it disgust that this was just a girl. This girl has broken the male descent of his line, and he blames Nanny Flowers—his wife—and her overpowering female side. Porourangi was the girl’s father and he was Koro’s eldest grandson and the narrator’s elder brother. The narrator’s name is Rawiri, and he recounts how Koro takes a boat out to the deeps in protest of this girl’s birth. Nanny Flowers goes after this paka—her affectionate title for him—and attempts to reason with him but he will have none of that. Remaining stubbornly in the lake, he rows his boat this way and that. But Nanny just as stubbornly chases after him with her own boat and is able to forcefully drag him back to shore because her boat has a motor. Time passed but the contentious point remained aging and growing as Kahu herself aged. The problem was, Rawiri explains, that Koro held beliefs in Maori culture, in which custom dictates that leadership passes from eldest son to eldest son. Koro was the leader of his people and Porourangi was in line, but now Kahu was no eldest son but instead an eldest daughter. That is why he is so bitterly disappointed with Kahu’s birth. Nanny Flowers tries to convince her husband to rejoice but the struggle ends only with her promising to divorce him—as she always does—and citing the example of her female ancestor Muriwai, who was a woman and also the greatest chieftain of her tribe.