Moriori
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Moriori are the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rekohu in the Moriori language), east of the New Zealand archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
Contents
Origin
The Moriori are culturally Polynesian. Although speculation once suggested that they settled the Chatham Islands directly from the tropical Polynesian islands, scholars now agree that ancestral Moriori migrated as Māori from the southern South Island of New Zealand about 1500 AD, and developed a distinct Moriori culture in the Chatham Islands as they adapted to local conditions. Evidence supporting this theory comes from the innovations that the Moriori language has in common with the Māori dialect spoken by the Ngai Tahu tribe of the South Island, comparisons of the genealogies of Moriori ("hokopapa") and Māori ("whakapapa"), and prevailing wind patterns in the southern Pacific. The Chatham Islands thus became the last outpost in the Pacific to be settled during the period of Polynesian discovery and colonization (Clark 1994, King 2000). The origin of the name Moriori is uncertain; it may have developed as a linguistic reduplication of the old Polynesian word Māori; if so, it would have the meaning "(ordinary) people".Adapting to harsh climate
The Chatham Islands have an environment colder and harsher than the one the original settlers had left behind, and they are barely capable of supporting a population. The Chathams proved unsuitable for the cultivation of most crops known to Polynesians, and the Moriori adopted a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Lacking resources of cultural significance such as greenstone and plentiful timber, they found outlets for their artistic impulses in making dendroglyphs.1835 invasion from Taranaki
As a small and precarious population, Moriori embraced a pacifist culture which rigidly avoided warfare, substituting it with dispute resolution in the form of ritual fighting and conciliation. In 1835 some Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama people, Māori from the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand, chartered a European ship, the Rodney, and settled in the Chathams. They went on to slaughter and cannibalise the Moriori, enslaving the survivors. The pacifist Moriori refused to fight; thus the incoming Māori, who regularly resolved conflict through military means, easily defeated them.Although it is commonly believed that the Māori invaders completely wiped out the Moriori, several thousand mixed ancestry Moriori descendants remain alive today. Tommy Solomon, the last Moriori of unmixed ancestry, died in 1933.
Revival of culture
Recent years have seen a revival of interest in Moriori culture and identity, and some Moriori descendants have made claims against the New Zealand government through the Waitangi Tribunal, a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Maori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown in the period since 1840 that breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.The debunked myth of Moriori in New Zealand
New Zealand popular culture of the early twentieth century long held an unsubstantiated myth that the 'Moriori', a small-statured dark-skinned race of possible Melanesian origin, originally inhabited New Zealand before the fairer-skinned Māori arrived and drove the Moriori out to the Chathams. This story conveniently promoted racist stereotyping and justified the idea of colonisation by cultural 'superiors'[[Citing sources citation needed]], but has no historical or anthropological merit. Michael King's Moriori: A People Rediscovered (2000) provides the only comprehensive and systematic account of Moriori. Its publication helped finally dispel longstanding misrepresentations and untruths about Moriori which formerly circulated among the New Zealand population.References
- Clark, Ross (1994). Moriori and Maori: The Linguistic Evidence. In Sutton, Douglas G. (Ed.) (1994), The Origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press, pp. 123–-135.
- King, Michael (2000). Moriori: A People Rediscovered (Revised Edition). Published by Viking. ISBN 0140103910. Original edition 1989.
External links
- [Te Ara encyclopaedia on Moriori]
- [Hokotehi Moriori trust website]
- [Rekohu: Report on Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga Claims in the Chatham Islands]
- [Detailed illustrated account of the Moriori]
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