Moriori are the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rekohu in Moriori, Wharekauri in Māori), east of the New Zealand archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. These people lived by a code of non-violence and passive resistance (see Nunuku-whenua), which led to their near-extinction at the hands of Taranaki Māori invaders in the 1830s.

The Chatham Islands from space. Chatham Island is the largest, Pitt Island is the second largest, and South East Island is the small island to the right of Pitt

During the early 20th century it was commonly believed that the Moriori were pre-Māori settlers of New Zealand, linguistically and genetically different from the Māori, and possibly Melanesian. This story, incorporated into Stephenson Percy Smith's "Great Fleet" hypothesis, was widely believed during the early 20th century. However the hypothesis was not always accepted, see 1904 paper by A. Shand on The Early History of the Morioris.

By the late 20th century the hypothesis that the Moriori were different from the Māori had fallen out of favour amongst archeologists, who believed that the Moriori were Maori who settled on the Chatham Islands in the 16th century. The earlier hypothesis was discredited in the 1960s and 1970s.^[1][2]

Origin[link]

The Moriori are culturally Polynesian. They developed a distinct Moriori culture in the Chatham Islands as they adapted to local conditions. Although speculation once suggested that they settled the Chatham Islands directly from the tropical Polynesian islands, or even that they were Melanesian in origin, current research indicates that ancestral Moriori were Māori Polynesians who emigrated to the Chatham Islands from New Zealand before 1500.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

Evidence supporting this theory comes from the characteristics that the Moriori language has in common with the dialect of Māori spoken by the Ngāi Tahu tribe of the South Island, and comparisons of the genealogies of Moriori ("hokopapa") and Māori ("whakapapa"). Prevailing wind patterns in the southern Pacific add to the speculation that the Chatham Islands were the last part of the Pacific to be settled during the period of Polynesian discovery and colonisation.^[3][6] The word Moriori derives from Proto-Polynesian *ma(a)qoli, which has the reconstructed meaning "true, real, genuine". It is cognate with the Maori language word Māori^[7] and likely also had the meaning "(ordinary) people".

The earliest indication of human occupation of the Chathams, inferred from middens exposed due to erosion of sand dunes, has been established as 450 years BP.^[8]

Adapting to local conditions[link]

The Chathams are colder and less hospitable than the land the original settlers had left behind, and although abundant in resources, these were different from those available where they had come from. The Chathams proved unsuitable for the cultivation of most crops known to Polynesians, and the Moriori adopted a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Food was almost entirely marine-sourced - protein and fat from fish, fur seals and the fatty young of sea birds. The islands supported about 2000 people.^{[citation needed]}

Moriori tree carving or dendroglyph

Lacking resources of cultural significance such as greenstone and plentiful timber, they found outlets for their ritual needs in the carving of dendroglyphs (incisions into tree trunks, called rakau momori). Some of these carvings are protected by the J M Barker (Hapupu) National Historic Reserve.

As a small and precarious population, Moriori embraced a pacifist culture that rigidly avoided warfare, substituting it with dispute resolution in the form of ritual fighting and conciliation. The ban on warfare and cannibalism is attributed to their ancestor Nunuku-whenua.

This enabled the Moriori to preserve what limited resources they had in their harsh climate, avoiding waste through warfare, such as may have led to catastrophic habitat destruction and population decline on Easter Island. However, when considered as a moral imperative rather than a pragmatic response to circumstances, it also led to their later near-destruction at the hands of invading North Island Māori.

European contact and invasion by Taranaki Māori[link]

William R. Broughton landed on 29 November 1791, and claimed possession of the islands for Great Britain, naming them after his ship, HMS Chatham. Sealers and whalers soon made the islands a centre of their activities, competing for resources with the native population. Between 10% and 20% of Moriori soon died from imported diseases.^{[citation needed]}

In 1835 some Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama people, Māori from the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand invaded the Chathams. On 19 November 1835, the Rodney, a chartered European ship, arrived carrying 500 Maori armed with guns, clubs and axes, followed by another ship with 400 more Maori on 5 December 1835. They proceeded to enslave some Moriori and kill and cannibalise others. "Parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories and settlements without warning, permission or greeting. If the districts were wanted by the invaders, they curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals."^[10]

A council of Moriori elders was convened at the settlement called Te Awapatiki. Despite knowing of the Māori predilection for killing and eating the conquered, and despite the admonition by some of the elder chiefs that the principle of Nunuku was not appropriate now, two chiefs — Tapata and Torea — declared that "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative."^[11] A Moriori survivor recalled : "[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep.... [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed - men, women and children indiscriminately." A Maori conqueror explained, "We took possession... in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped....." ^[12]

After the invasion, Moriori were forbidden to marry Moriori, or to have children with each other. All became slaves of the Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga invaders. Many died from despair. Many Moriori women had children by their Maori masters. A small number of Moriori women eventually married either Maori or European men. Some were taken from the Chathams and never returned. Only 101 Moriori out of a population of about 2,000 were left alive by 1862 (Kopel et al., 2003). Although the last Moriori of unmixed ancestry, Tommy Solomon,^[13] died in 1933 there are several thousand mixed ancestry Moriori alive today.

An all-male group of German Moravian missionaries arrived in 1843.^[14] When a group of women were sent out to join them three years later, several marriages ensued; a few members of the present-day population can trace their ancestry back to those missionary families.

Revival of culture[link]

Today, in spite of the difficulties and genocide that Moriori faced, with unrelenting stoicism and peaceful resignation, Moriori are enjoying a renaissance, both on Rekohu and in the mainland of New Zealand. Moriori culture and identity is being revived, symbolised in January 2005 with the renewal of the Covenant of Peace at the new Kopinga marae^[15] on the Chathams.

Some Moriori descendants have made claims against the New Zealand government through the Waitangi Tribunal, a commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown in the period since 1840, which breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Moriori in New Zealand[link]

Based on writing of Percy Smith and Elsdon Best, there grew theories that the Māori had displaced a more primitive pre-Māori population of Moriori (sometimes described as a small-statured, dark-skinned race of possible Melanesian origin), in mainland New Zealand - and that the Chatham Island Moriori were the last remnant of this earlier race. Being based on the work of two widely respected experts, these theories also had the advantage - from a European settler view - of presenting a neat progression of waves of migration and conquest by increasingly more civilised and technically able peoples, and therefore justifying racist stereotyping and colonisation by cultural "superiors".^[16] These theories were widely published in the early twentieth century,^[17] and crucially, this story was promoted in a series of three articles in the School Journal of 1916,^[18] and the 1934 A. W. Reed's schoolbook The Coming of the Maori to Ao-tea-roa ^[18] —and therefore became familiar to generations of schoolchildren. Notably, the concept also undermines notions of the Māori as the indigenous people of New Zealand, by portraying them as conquerors.

A number of historians, anthropologists and ethnologists, however, examined and rejected the hypothesis of a racially distinct pre-Maori Moriori people. Among them, anthropologist H.D. Skinner in 1923,^[19] ethnologist Roger Duff in the 1940s,^[20] and historian and ethnographer Arthur Thomson in 1959,^[21] as did Michael King's Moriori: A People Rediscovered in 2000 and James Belich^[22] and K.R. Howe in Te Ara.^[20]

See also[link]

• Waitaha—A Māori iwi who settled early in the South Island, and were subsequently absorbed by Kāti Mamoe and Ngāi Tahu.

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Official Hokotehi Moriori Trust website
• Rekohu: Report on Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga Claims in the Chatham Islands
• Official Moriori Education Resources Website
• Other early peoples

References[link]

• Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen (2003). 'A Moriori Lesson: a brief history of pacifism.' National Review Online, 11 April 2003. (URL [1])