Transcript
THE AOTEAROA HISTORY SHOW
MORIORI
WILLIAM: In this episode we are discussing some of the history of Moriori people.
This story is widely misunderstood by lots of New Zealanders… cos over the years people have been told a lot of stuff about Moriori which is... Well...
MĀNI: Complete and utter rubbish?
WILLIAM: Yeah, Like that Moriori were the first people to live in Aotearoa, and were driven out by Māori invaders.
MĀNI: That’s not what happened.
WILLIAM: Or that they were descended from vikings or ancient celtic people.
MĀNI: Absolutely not true.
WILLIAM: Or even that they are extinct.
MĀNI: Still alive and kicking!
WILLIAM: And that’s a huge shame, cos the real story is fascinating, tragic and important…
MĀNI: There’s a lot we can learn from Moriori history. So let's get into it!
INTRO STING
MĀNI: First let's talk about the place Moriori call home.
Today it’s known by three names - Rēkohu, the original Moriori name, Chatham - the English name, and Wharekauri, the Māori name.
These names technically refer to the largest of a group of islands - but to keep things simple we’ll refer to the whole group as Rēkohu from now on.
WILLIAM: Rēkohu sits about 800 kilometres east of the South Island in a part of the ocean known as the Chatham Rise that’s particularly rich in sea life.
The islands were home to massive colonies of birds and seals before the first humans arrived.
MĀNI: Some historians think Moriori karāpuna or ancestors, arrived in Aotearoa alongside the ancestors of Māori. But instead of settling permanently in mainland New Zealand, they set sail again and made their home in Rēkohu.
WILLIAM: But many Moriori believe the first arrivals came directly from Eastern Polynesia to Rēkohu and never lived in Aotearoa permanently.
Some traditions suggest later arrivals may have migrated from Aotearoa, others point to voyaging back and forth between the islands.
So there's still a bit of debate over exactly how people first arrived at Rēkohu. But what happened after they got there?
MĀNI: Well, Moriori tradition records that Rēkohu was settled by multiple imi (tribes). They arrived in separate migrations several generations apart.
Moriori Hokopapa (genealogy) records the first arrivals as being led by two brothers, Rongomaiwhenua and Rongomaitere. They erected the first Pou Henu or ‘post of the land’ at Te Awapatiki where the lagoon opens to the sea. This remains a sacred place to Moriori to this day.
It’s thought one of the earliest settlements was on neighbouring Rangihaute, or Pitt Island, before people spread to Rēkohu.
WILLIAM: Generations later, a navigator called Kāhu came from Hhiawaiki. When he got back he gave directions to his relatives.
MĀNI: Even more generations after that, war broke out between the tribes in Hhiawaiki.
The Wheteina clan wanted to escape the conflict, so they followed Kāhu’s directions and sailed to Rēkohu aboard two waka, Rangihoua and Rangimata.
WILLIAM: When they arrived, Wheteina agreed to live in peace alongside the descendants of Rongomaiwhenua and Rongomaitere.
But a generation or two later another waka arrived - Ōropuke, carrying a fourth group, the Rauru clan.
MĀNI: Rauru were historic rivals of Wheteina, and with their arrival the peace on Rēkohu shattered.
Old grudges flared into warfare. Some even feared the custom of cannibalism from back in Hhiawaiki might be revived.
But in the midst of one battle a man named Nunuku-Whenua forced himself between the warring tribes.
According to Moriori tradition he said…
“Ko ro patu, ko ro kei tangata me tapu toake!”
“Cease your fighting and lay down your weapons. From now and forever, never let there be war as this day has been! From today on, forget the taste of human flesh! May your bowels rot the day you disobey!”
WILLIAM: In the generations that followed, boys would be taken to the Tūahu, a sacred altar, by their fathers. The old weapons would be handed to them and their purpose explained.
The boys would then replace the weapons on the Tūahu, affirming their dedication to Nunuku’s law of peace.
MĀNI: Moriori still had plenty of disputes and conflicts - But these conflicts weren’t allowed to escalate into war.
WILLIAM: Physical conflict was managed by ritualised fighting using long, slender staffs called tupuare. After first blood was drawn, honour was deemed to have been satisfied and fighting would stop.
MĀNI: Life on Rēkohu provided plenty of other challenges without the threat of war.
There weren’t any big, hardwood trees to provide timber to build or repair traditional waka, and traditional crops like kūmara couldn’t grow in these cold and exposed islands.
WILLIAM: Moriori came up with all sorts of adaptations.
They imported the Kōpi or Karaka tree and harvested its nuts for food. - That’s this plant here.
MĀNI: Moriori used seal skins to protect themselves from the cold weather.
They built waka filled with inflated kelp bladders and bundles of dried flax, held together with wooden framing.
Seawater could wash through the frame and act as a ballast, making these vessels virtually unsinkable.
WILLIAM: Some were more than 18 metres long and carried people on expeditions to catch birds on islands up to 20 kilometres out to sea.
And that was all part of a unique culture which developed over hundreds of years.
MĀNI: There was little distinction between people based on rank. Work was shared equally and decisions were made cooperatively. It’s worth underlining that, because it’s pretty rare in world history.
Māori and Pākehā both had societies heavily based on hereditary leadership.
WILLIAM: Moriori also held a deep respect for the spiritual world. Even Māori, who were pretty spiritual themselves, described Moriori as a “very tapu people”.
MĀNI: There were special chants and incantations for virtually every task or occasion.
Moriori created thousands of Rākau Momori, Kōpi trees engraved with permanent images.
Most of the engravings depict ancestors, others show sea-life, birds and plants.
WILLIAM: Moriori believed that engraving images of loved ones onto the bark infused their spirit into the tree, which acted as a kind of portal to the spiritual homeland.
Important meetings and ceremonies were held in groves of engraved Kōpi.
MĀNI: Moriori still remembered the outside world through their hokopapa but they had no contact with that wider world for hundreds of years.
WILLIAM: Then, on November 29th 1791, a British ship turned up and a bunch of sailors wandered ashore.
Their captain, Lieutenant William Broughton [BROAR-TIN], claimed ownership of the island for Britain, naming it after his ship - the Chatham.
According to Broughton’s journal, first contact between Europeans and Moriori went pretty well.
“They seemed a cheerful race, our conversation frequently exciting bursts of laughter amongst them. On our first landing their surprise and exclamation can only be imagined; they pointed to the sun, and then to us, as if to ask whether we had come from thence.” - Journal of William Broughton, 1791
MĀNI: But Broughton said when he tried to return to his ship, things suddenly got tense.
He wrote that Moriori grabbed at his men, knocking one to the ground. Some of the sailors panicked and fired their muskets, killing one Moriori man and injuring others.
WILLIAM: The most widely accepted Moriori explanation is that this fight started after a sailor tried to steal a Moriori fishing net.
MĀNI: Regardless, Nunuku’s law had been broken, there had been violence and killing.
But what’s kind of interesting is both sides thought they were to blame.
WILLIAM: Lieutenant Broughton criticised his men for opening fire without orders, and left a canoe full of food and trade goods on the beach as a token of apology.
MĀNI: Meanwhile, Moriori held a meeting to discuss the encounter and the Moriori men involved were punished. They agreed that if these strange people ever returned, Moriori would go to extreme lengths to keep things peaceful.
WILLIAM: When the next European ship arrived, Moriori held an elaborate ceremony. First they dropped their weapons, then a spokesman threw his cloak over the arrivals while giving a long speech of welcome.
MĀNI: In the 1830s, Rēkohu was occasionally visited by European ships hunting seals and whales.
WILLIAM: According to a Moriori called Koche, whose father lived at the time, these visitors found Moriori...
“Hospitable, cheerful friends and willing assistants in their labours, and love between them flourished like a palm.” - Koche, Catholic World, 1873
MĀNI: But this interaction was also harmful. Maybe the most serious long-term impact was the extermination of seal colonies. As historian Michael King wrote:
“Whereas the Moriori practise had been to kill only male seals, usually older ones, and to remove the carcasses, European sealers killed indiscriminately and left flensed carcasses to rot around the rookeries, driving away even those animals that survived outright killing. By the 1830s the rookeries on the main island were virtually bare of animals.” - Michael King, Moriori: A People Rediscovered, 2000
Those seal colonies were extremely important to Moriori. There's a famous rock carving depicting them at Te Ana-a-Nunuku, also known as Nunuku’s cave.
Without rich seal meat to eat, and without warm seal skins to wear, Moriori must have had a tough time surviving the cold winters of Rēkohu.
WILLIAM: Meanwhile, European ships had been visiting mainland Aotearoa in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Some of them traded muskets with Māori in exchange for flax, timber, potatoes and pork.
If you’ve already seen our episode on the Musket Wars, you know what’s coming next.
MĀNI: Rangatira quickly realised how effective these new weapons were and used them to settle old scores with rival tribes.
WILLIAM: Over the next 30 years, this spiralled into what’s most commonly known as The Musket Wars.
MĀNI: The Musket Wars were a time of unprecedented chaos, which we cover in another episode.
It’s estimated 50 thousand people were killed, injured, displaced, or enslaved.
Caught up in all this were two Taranaki iwi, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga. They came under intense pressure from Waikato iwi raiding into their territory.
WILLIAM: But they also saw trade with Pākehā as a key to the future… something Ngati Toa Rangatira chief Te Rauparaha also recognised.
So in the 1820s a coalition made up of Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Toa Rangatira and others headed south. They eventually seized land in Kāpiti, Horowhenua and around Whanganui-a-tara, or Wellington harbour.
MĀNI: After about 10 years though that coalition started to fray and Ngati Mutunga and Tama members held a series of hui to figure out what to do next.
WILLIAM: Young men from both iwi had been working on whaling ships out in the Pacific and told wonderful stories of Rekohu.
Paki Whara of Ngāti Tama later recalled the conversation going something like this:
“It is a land of food - he whenua kai! It is full of birds … There is an abundance of sea and shellfish; the lakes swarm with eels; and it is a land of the karaka berry … The inhabitants are very numerous, but they do not understand how to fight, and have no weapons.” - Paki Whara, quoted by Alexander Shand, ‘Occupation of the Chatham Islands by the Maoris in 1835’ Journal of the Polynesian Society, 1892.
MĀNI: So, about 900 members of both iwi commandeered a ship called the Lord Rodney and made their way to Rēkohu.
Its captain, John Harewood, said he was forced to take the Māori on board, but he also admitted they paid him.
WILLIAM: The Lord Rodney made two trips to Rēkohu. The first mostly carrying Ngāti Tama, the second mostly carrying Ngāti Mutunga.
MĀNI: The ship was overcrowded. Many members of both iwi suffered dehydration and seasickness
Moriori sources said some Māori were so unwell when they landed they had to be nursed back to health by Moriori.
At first, Moriori weren’t sure why Māori had arrived. As one later said.
“...their true intentions were hidden from us.” - Hirawanu Tapu, 1862
WILLIAM: Then, probably a month or so after the landing, those intentions became clear. As historian Michael King puts it…
“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.” - Michael King, Moriori: A People Rediscovered, 1989
A vassal is an old mediaeval word. It means something like “subject” or “servant”.
MĀNI: Some Moriori objected to this, but the Māori chiefs weren’t prepared to negotiate. Those who resisted were killed.
WILLIAM: After a few days, nearly a thousand Moriori held a meeting at Te Awapatiki, a sacred spot at the opening of Te Whanga lagoon which had yet to be reached by Māori.
The young men spoke first. As one Moriori leader later explained…
“It was proposed to make a combined assault on the intruders and even though many of the Moriori might fall, they would [ultimately] succeed.” - Hirawanu Tapu, 1862
MĀNI: The young men acknowledged Nunuku’s law forbade killing, but surely this was a special case?
But the older men repeated the words of Nunuku-Whenua: “For now and forever, never let there be war”
Nunuku’s law of peace permitted no exceptions, anyone who broke it would be outcast from Moriori society.
WILLIAM: The debate lasted three days, but in the end the older men prevailed. Moriori would return to their villages and offer to share land and resources peacefully with the invaders.
MĀNI: Unfortunately, they never got the chance.
Moriori sources said two rangatira of Ngāti Tama, Meremere and Ngā Pe, stumbled across the meeting at Te Awapatiki while scouting for land to settle.
WILLIAM: And for a moment, let's look at this from their perspective.
Meremere and Ngā Pe saw nearly a thousand Moriori arguing back and forth about whether to make a coordinated attack on Māori or hold to their covenant of peace
But they left before the meeting ended, so they may not have realised Moriori had decided to remain peaceful.
MĀNI: To them, it may have seemed they were facing a serious threat. After all, Moriori outnumbered Māori by two to one on Rēkohu at this point.
It’s likely Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga held a hui of their own, and decided to attack the Moriori preemptively as they returned from Te Awapatiki.
WILLIAM: Here’s how Moriori described what happened.
“The women and children were bound, and many of these, together with the men, were killed and eaten, so that the corpses lay scattered in the woods and over the plains. Those who were spared from death were herded like swine, and killed even from year to year.” - Informants of Alexander Shand, quoted from Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand XXXVII, 1904
MĀNI: Decades later, Moriori compiled a list of those who had died.
They named 118 men and 108 women killed by the invaders. They also noted the list didn’t include a considerable number of children whose names had been forgotten.
WILLIAM: The Waitangi Tribunal has since estimated the total death toll at 300 - nearly a sixth of the roughly 2000 Moriori living at the time.
MĀNI: Speaking decades after the invasion, in 1870, Ngāti Mutunga Rangatira Rakatau Katihe said.
“We took possession … in accordance with our custom … Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed - but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom.” - Rakatau Katihe, 1870
WILLIAM: Now that sounds brutal, but Rakatau was correct.
19th century Māori saw warfare as a valid way of acquiring land and resources. That view was shared by most people in the world at the time.
MĀNI: As for the brutality of the invasion? The torture and cannibalism? That was a common feature of the Musket Wars.
WILLIAM: But Rēkohu wasn’t Aotearoa and Moriori had a completely different culture to Māori.
Warfare was not a valid way of settling a dispute and Nunuku-Whenua had expressly forbidden cannibalism.
MĀNI: The mental impact on Moriori who witnessed the violation of these laws was profound.
Alongside those 226 men and women named as being directly killed, Moriori also listed 1,336 people who died of kongenge, a disease of deep despair, in the years following the invasion.
WILLIAM: Those who survived were enslaved, raped, and many were worked brutally. A visiting German doctor and scientist said.
“...ulcerated backs bent almost double, and emaciated, paralytic limbs with diseased lungs, are the ordinary lot of these ill-fated wretches, to whom death must be a real blessing.” - Ernst Dieffenbach, 1840
MĀNI: Moriori were separated from family, forbidden from marrying each other, or having sexual contact. They were forbidden from speaking their own language or practising their religion.
European observers said Māori referred to Moriori slaves as “Paraiwhara” or ‘Black Fellas’ – a term sailors used for Aboriginal Australians.
WILLIAM: The children Māori masters had with female slaves were rejected by their fathers, and also became servants or slaves.
This was different from what usually happened to defeated people in traditional Māori warfare.
Raupatu, seizure of land through warfare, was normally solidified through strategic marriages, not through extermination.
MĀNI: In traditional Māori warfare, war captives couldn’t be bought or sold, and any children that captive women had with their masters were typically considered full members of their father’s hapū.
WILLIAM: Summing up the treatment of Moriori in a 2015 paper published in the Journal of Genocide Research, historian Dr André Brett wrote:
“Within the theoretical framework of genocide, the Moriori case satisfies the standard definition of acts committed with intent to destroy an ethnic group, specifically encompassing the acts of killing, prevention of births and imposition of living conditions not conducive to survival.” - André Brett, ‘The miserable remnant of this ill-used people’: colonial genocide and the Moriori of New Zealand's Chatham Islands, Journal of Genocide Research, 2015
MĀNI: So, why were Moriori treated like this? It’s hard to say for sure but historians have come up with a few theories.
WILLIAM: Many think the trauma of the Musket Wars played a part.
MĀNI: Michael King thought some members of Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga may have misinterpreted Moriori non-violence as cowardice, which they thought deserved punishment.
WILLIAM: And, Dr André Brett argues at least some members of those iwi believed Moriori were racially inferior.
As Dr Brett points out, Moriori slaves weren't referred to using traditional words for war captives like “Taurekareka” or “Mōkai”.
Instead, members of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama were recorded using a slur that Europeans commonly used for Aboriginal people.
MĀNI: But that’s not to say all Māori saw Moriori as inferiors to be exterminated, or that all Moriori were passive victims.
Following the invasion, some rangatira, like Pōmare Ngātata of Ngāti Mutunga and Meremere of Ngāti Tama, gave shelter to Moriori who were threatened by other Māori.
WILLIAM: And many Moriori resisted slavery by refusing to work in spite of threats, beatings and executions.
According to one account, a man called Koche took even more drastic action. He attempted to feed his master a poisonous fish, then escaped Rēkohu aboard a passing whaling ship.
MĀNI: In 1842 a group of Māori Anglican Missionaries arrived in Rēkohu, and most of the Māori population converted to Christianity. That same year, Rēkohu was officially declared part of colonial New Zealand.
WILLIAM: Many Māori who converted to Christianity freed their Moriori slaves, or at least treated them less brutally.
But still, many Moriori remained enslaved and while British officials were aware of their suffering, they didn’t do anything about it until the 1860s.
MĀNI: Māori began leaving Rēkohu in the 1850s. Ngāti Tama were basically driven off the island altogether after a series of conflicts with Ngāti Mutunga.
Others left as the whaling industry collapsed and opportunities for trade with passing ships dried up.
WILLIAM: And as the New Zealand Wars ramped up in the 1860s, many travelled home to defend ancestral lands in Taranaki from invasion by the Crown.
MĀNI: Over these years, Pākehā officials and visitors to Rēkohu continued raising the alarm over Moriori enslavement.
One letter sent directly to Governor George Grey in 1861 said...
“This miserable remnant of these ill-used people, I believe, cling most strongly to the belief that his excellency’s government will ere long restore them to freedom.” - William Seed, 1861
WILLIAM: But Governor Grey didn’t restore them to freedom, not yet anyway. So the next year, Moriori elders wrote to him themselves.
They were led by Hirawanu Tapu, who’d been 11 years old at the time of the invasion.
Hirawanu put together a 131 page document, laying out Moriori history - their hokopapa, the development of Nunuku’s law, the 1835 invasion and everything that had happened since.
MĀNI: It came with a petition, signed by all 30 surviving Moriori elders, urging the Governor to intervene.
“Friend, this is a request from us that you come here. You must bring us the law of England. We, the Moriori, are living without the law. Come here so that you may meet the remnants of the Moriori elders … come and save us.” - Hirawanu Tapu, 1862
WILLIAM: If Governor Grey ever replied to this letter it’s not recorded, but the next year, in 1863, Moriori slavery was finally abolished.
MĀNI: It was nearly 30 years since the initial invasion, and more than 20 years since the colonial government asserted control over Rēkohu.
The Moriori population had plummeted from more than two thousand in 1800, to 101 in 1860 - and it was still falling.
WILLIAM: Hirawanu Tapu continued lobbying the colonial government for the return of Moriori land. In another letter to Governor Grey he pointed out.
“We are the original inhabitants ... the law says that land taken unjustly must be returned to those whose it was before. Enough, come to set this island right.” - Hirawanu Tapu, 1862
MĀNI: It took eight more years before the Native Land Court finally sat in Rēkohu in 1870 to investigate and determine land ownership.
Hirawanu Tapu was the chief Moriori witness. He and others pointed out that according to Tīkane Moriori, Moriori customary law, anyone who killed a fellow human was outcast from society with no rights to land or resources.
The Māori invaders had breached that law, Moriori had not. As Hirawanu said:
"[Māori] have no grounds for claiming the land as against us the Morioris. I repudiate their right altogether because the blood of the Moriori as shed by them has never been revenged and therefore they have no right to the Islands." - Hirawanu Tapu speaking at the Native Land Court, 1870
WILLIAM: Unfortunately for Moriori, the Court thought in terms of British and Māori worldviews, which accepted that land could be claimed through conquest and occupation.
MĀNI: Judge John Rogan may also have been thinking that if the colonial government granted rights to land in Rēkohu to Ngāti Mutunga, it might make the iwi less upset about the Crown’s confiscation of ancestral lands in Taranaki.
WILLIAM: So the judge sided with Ngāti Mutunga. 97.3 percent of Rēkohu went into their ownership. Moriori were left virtually landless.
MĀNI: Over the next hundred years the Moriori population continued to fall. Language and traditions faded from living memory.
WILLIAM: But Hirawanu Tapu worked closely with a local ethnologist named Alexander Shand to save as much as possible.
They interviewed Moriori elders, preserving hokopapa, history, language, and traditions in a written record.
MĀNI: Unfortunately, this view of Moriori history wasn’t the one told in New Zealand schools.
Instead, educators went all in on a theory devised by ethnographers like Percy Smith and Elsdon Best.
WILLIAM: You may have heard this story before. It falsely claims Moriori were a “primitive” people who lived in Aotearoa before the more “advanced” Māori arrived and drove them to extinction.
Moriori on Rēkohu were supposedly a remnant of these “first” people of New Zealand.
MĀNI: This myth was challenged as soon as it emerged, and later fully debunked by professional historians, but a version of the story was published in the School Journal and was read by generations of young New Zealanders up until the 1970s.
WILLIAM: So why did these myths become so popular? Partly because they were politically useful to Pākehā.
MĀNI: Maui Solomon, chair of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust and chief Moriori negotiator puts it like this:
"The reason [the myth of Moriori extinction] became so powerfully ingrained in the psyche of New Zealanders is because, if Māori could push Moriori out of New Zealand, then later European migrants could push Māori off their land … it was a justification of European colonisation of Māori land." - Maui Solomon, The Detail, 25 February 2020
WILLIAM: Another myth that needs debunking is the idea that Moriori were just passive victims.
MĀNI: Their non-violent resistance showed amazing personal courage, and it inspired other movements.
WILLIAM: It’s thought Moriori philosophy influenced Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti-o-Rongomai - the famous pacifist leaders of Parihaka.
MĀNI: Ngāti Mutunga became huge supporters of Tohu and Te Whiti. In fact the albatross feather worn by the people of Parihaka as a symbol of peace was originally a Moriori symbol.
WILLIAM: Over time, Moriori have reclaimed some of what was lost and taken from them.
In 2005 Kōpinga Marae became the first Moriori Marae to be established since the invasion. It’s become a hub for the revitalisation of Moriori language and culture.
MĀNI: As the true story of Moriori history becomes more widely known, people with Moriori ancestry are becoming more comfortable expressing that identity.
Today there are about six-thousand people of Moriori descent including many of the 600 people living on Rēkohu.
Many of the current day people of Rēkohu have mixed hokopapa including Moriori, Pākehā, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama whānau.
WILLIAM: The Hokotehi Moriori Trust is heavily involved in conservation efforts. They aim to make Rēkohu predator free, and restore the forests which once cloaked the island.
MĀNI: In November 2021, the Crown passed The Moriori Claims Settlement Bill with the Moriori Imi Settlement Trust. That bill includes official apologies, including for its failure to protect Morirori, uphold their language and culture, and perpetuating stereotypes of Moriori as a racially inferior people.
The bill also includes 18 million dollars of financial compensation.
WILLIAM: Summing up an article on the history and modern day experiences of Moriori people, Maui Solomon wrote this.
“Such was the commitment of my Moriori karāpuna to living in peace and sharing the resources of their islands, that they refused as a people to ever fight to the death again. … In doing so, they suffered greatly, and many died.
But they did not die in vain. Their legacy of peace and hope lives on through the thousands of descendants living today — many of whom are just learning the truth. For, when all the wars and battles have been fought, what then? Humans must learn to live in peace with one another and with their environment if we are to survive and thrive as a species. That’s the bottom line.” - Maui Solomon, Moriori: Still setting the record straight, E-Tangata, December 15, 2019
