Interestingly enough over the past nearly a year or so, many people have said to me, “whats the point in blaming anyone for what happened a 170 years ago?” And to a certain point I would have to agree. There is absolutely no point in blaming anyone for something that happened 170 years ago. Absolutely! Besides, I’m picking that the majority of those involved have probably met their makers by now anyway. Correct me if I’m wrong.
My usual response to the question has undergone a bit of a change after a wee bit of a rain check. I had to ask myself, why do people always ask me that question. The answer was simple. Obviously I wasnt communicating well enough for people to understand my take on the debate regarding Moriori, Rekohu, Treaty issues, Ngati Mutunga, Wharekauri, History, alienation, assimmilation, dispossession, murder, theft, and general skullduggery; not to mention the slavery, poverty, cultural and physical genocide and a whole range of other things, far too unsavoury to mention.
As far as I know, and between you and me, I’ve read quite a few bits and pieces over the past year ( and a few more years to boot) and I can quite happily say that nowhere have I read about Moriori complaining about what Te Ati Awa did to them.
What Moriori do have an issue with is not what Maori did to them in 1835 but what successive Governments and NZ society did to them since then.
I think that deep down (actually probably not that far) Moriori know and many will admit that what Maori did in 1835 was only what their (Maori) custom dictated them to do. Unfortunately for Moriori, those customs didnt quite match up to Moriori customs or beliefs.
At the end of the day, the Maori invasion of Rekohu was a deliberate planned move on the part of Te Ati Awa, and in retrospect probably done with the full knowledge of the provisional governing bodies at the time. But that was fine. That was what they did. They had just had their own butts kicked out of Taranaki, so why not head off to where the kai was plentiful and the locals didnt or wouldnt fight. It would have seemed like a bit of a holiday after the previous few years for them. In several accounts that I have read, it was a choice between conquering Rekohu or heading up to Samoa and taking the Samoans on. Its probably just as well for Te Ati Awa, that the chartered ship headed Southeast out of Port Nicholson and not to the North, because it may have been a different outcome for them. Sadly for Moriori they did.
The manner of what they did, should also not invite blame. Once again it was business as usual. These people were warrior people, not travelling vacuum cleaner salesmen. They went to Rekohu and kicked butt, because that was what they did.
Where society has (repeatedly) let Moriori down, was that there were Europeans living right there on Rekohu, amongst Moriori in some cases and all stood by and let the initial slaughter and invasion happen.
Okay, so that too might be understandable. 900 Maori warriors in full battle mode, claiming all in their path, in fact racing to beat the other tribe to the spoils. 1561 unarmed and non-combatant Moriori in some cases gracefully receiving their fate, in others, being hunted down and murdered, the remainder shepherded up like animals. I guess you could understand that initial reluctance on the part of the Europeans to interfere with what was obviously (to them) an inter-tribal dispute?
Now we get to the gnarlier parts.
But with all of the above aside… with no particluar blame attached, …. maybe an acknowledgement that.. “ok, now that wasnt very nice behaviour, but I guess that youve been living like that for a few hundred years or more, and fighting is what you do, and you guys, well you should have put up a bit more of a struggle, cos ya know you could have had em”
With all that aside, how did the rest of the “civilised” (and I use that sparingly) country of New Zealand manage to sit aside and then allow the hundred and fifty plus years of racism and intolerance, slavery, assimmilation and genocide to occur. Some might say, “well we didnt know”.
Bollocks.
Moriori were not and are not the inferior intellect that many early ethnologists explained them as, thereby justifying the fact that white New Zealand condoned Maori keeping them as slaves and concubines and holding their lives in their hands and often taking their lives. This was after slavery was abolished in New Zealand. And by the way for those of you who dont know where Rekohu is: it is actually a part of New Zealand and lies to the South east of Christchurch. It’s actually been a part of NZ since 1842. Slavery wasnt eliminated there until 1863, even though the Treaty, that wonderful “founding” document of this great racially inclusive nation of ours, sort of spells out that the natives shouldnt be slaves.
Oh yes, but Moriori are not covered by the treaty are they? They didnt sign it, they couldnt have, they were busy running around after their Maori masters, so how could they have signed the Treaty?
They didnt, but it was well done of you to ask the question. Neither did a whole heap of mainland Maori tribes sign the Treaty.
The answer is in the wording of the Treaty. Have a look and see how many times you can find reference to the Treaty being just about Maori. From memory, I think you will find that the treaty is a deal between the crown and the natives and chiefs of New Zealand, and as Rekohu was included in NZ in 1842, and Moriori were and still are the “natives” (tchakat henu actually)of those sunny isles, ergo they must be covered by the good old Treaty of Waitangi, which ironically enough is the comon use name of the main township on Rekohu, although it is a Maori name and the original Moriori name is Waiteke, but placenames are another story.
So here is a quite good sized chunk of New Zealand citizens, in abject slavery, many murdered, many eaten, all forbidden to congregate, marry each other, have children, own land, total slavery, and everybody sat back and watched.
The Government even actively participated in the genocide some 35 years later by allowing a land court sitting to strip away the land through the courts thereby reinforcing and legitimising everything that had happened.
None of these actions were in the cultural vocabulary of Moriori. Moriori had a peaceful philosophy and had done for hundreds of years. Moriori had abolished warfare, even though they came from a volatile homeland (reportedly about the same time as Maori came to New Zealand) and lived in harmony with the environment and each other. So when the Maori arrived and the Moriori helped them recover from their sea voyage and the Maori subsequently turned on them, younger Moriori wanted to fight, but their own beliefs, developed over hundreds of years forbade them from retaliating, so they didnt.
I wonder if Mahatma Ghandi or Mandela knew about Nunuku’s law?
So whilst murder and warfare were in the cultural vocabulary of both the Maori and the colonial powers, they were unknown to Moriori.
Repeated written pleadings to the Governor fell on deaf ears. Scientific studies, both ethnographical and botannical mention Moriori and their plight, all published, but yet no-one in authority did anything to help. Slaves were removed from Rekohu and transported to the bleak and inhospitable Auckland Islands as part of a doomed experiment in Maori expansionism, watched over by colonial expansionism. Many of these Moriori were never returned to Rekohu, with most ending up on Rakiura (Stewart Island).
There is simply no excuse for historically saying “we didnt know”.
Nowhere in todays schools are we taught anything about this fascinating part of New Zealands early history, although previous mention of Moriori by offical publications also helped perpetuate the myth that Moriori were an inferior and “indolent” race if they actually ever existed. Speaking of myths, that has been one of the most effective methods employed to destabilise the history and culture of Moriori and foil any attempts by the Moriori people to reassert themselves as a people.
Myth: Moriori never existed.
Answer: wow. One wonders then, who was living on Rekohu in 1791 when the Brig Chatham arrived, because they sure werent “Maoris” (in the strictest sense of the word)and they had a different dialect, appearance, culture, traditions, art, and no contact with mainland NZ and they had been there for many hundrds of years.
Myth: Moriori were invented by the colonial government to legitimise colonisation of NZ
Answer: Wow. So because Maori conquered Moriori, that made it alright for the pakeha to conquer Maori. Bollocks, that may be a percieved position to take in a debate but it really is bollocks.
Myth: There are no Moriori
Answer: Wow. Wrong again! The last full-blooded Moriori was recorded as dying in 1933. Now some will argue even that point, but whatever the accuracy of that statement, and I have seen no evience to contradict that by the way, that gentleman had descendants. I have seen the hokopapa charts (genealogy to you white folks, or whakapapa to Maori) and guess what? There are heaps of Moriori around New Zealand and Australia (and a few further afeild than that too). The Moriori Imi (thats Iwi to Maori and I guess ‘tribe’ to you Pakeha) has quite a large congregation, which is growing as more and more people waken to their heritage and trace their legitimate hokopapa.
There are possibly even more to come, as Moriori were known to have travelled (stowed) away on whaling and sealing ships to all corners of the globe, many never to return.
Myth: Moriori were an inferior race of low intellect.
Answer: Wow. Bollocks. I have read this in many articles from supposedly esteemed scientific authors, and it is beyond me how such a statment can be written about a people. I can understand how you can say that about an individual, but a whole race of people? Wow! Some quantify the statement with the excuse that they must be of inferior intellect to have been conquered by a lesser number of Maori, and others base their assessment on the condition that they first saw Moriori in (post 1835). If you had just witnessed the murder and cannabilisation of family members, been imprisoned, beaten, deprived of ALL of your basic human rights, you probably wouldnt be feeling too flash either. Certainly not up to a game of chess with an arrogant ethnologist trying to establish your mental accuity.
Myth: Moriori are just another Maori tribe trying to get in on the “Treaty” windfall
Answer: Wow. Actually, if you take the time to read the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on Rekohu (Moriori and Ngati Mutunga) you might (as I was) be impressed by the way in which the above myths were dealt with. Where I (personally) think that they got it a wee bit wrong, was over this particular myth, but that might have been a legal way to permit them to handle Moriori claims. I guess if they had said that Moriori were not Maori (note the use of the capital as opposed to maori) then some bright spark would have challenged them through the courts. Anyway getting back to the myth at hand:
Acccording to the Waitangi Tribunal and others throughout the years, Moriori originated from the same place as Maori (Hawaiiki, which may be Tonga, Fiji,Hawaii,Rarotonga Easter Island, actually anywhere in polynesia) (but generations earlier) and left the mainland (NZ) about the same time as Maori arrived there.
Maori from Hawaiiki (and lets just pretend for the sake of argument that Hawaiiki is really Tonga) came to NZ and settled here and through that settlement and their occupation in relative isolation from their homeland they became Maori (rather than just Tongans living abroad).
At the time that they arrived, the Moriori headed out for Rekohu, settling there in complete isolation, developing their own culture and beliefs. Yet the Waitangi tribunal, identified that Maori (mainland) are not simply “Tongans” (for example) but have developed ther own identity and have become Maori, a seperate race. Yet the Moriori who have lived in isolation for the same amount of time are identified by the Waitangi Tribunal as Maori, or at least a tribe of Maori.
Surely they deserve the same distinction of a seperate race, otherwise Maori cant be Maori either? Its all very confusing really.
The Waitangi Tribunal got it right though when they said that Moriori really were the indigenous people or Tchakat Henu of Rekohu. They also said that through occupation of 170 odd years, that Ngati Mutunga were also Tangata Whenua.
Today, Moriori are still being marginalised and discriminated against and denied their status as a unique people and original inhabitants of Rekohu. The majority of place names in common use around the island are either Pakeha or Maori, Moriori do not have the opportunities that Maori have with regard to identity in offical documents, instead being relegated to filling out the “other” category, and Moriori re (reo) which was recorded in the mid 1800’s is not an official language of New Zealand, yet it surely predates Maori Reo, even if only a dialect and not a seperate language.
Moriori recieve no recognition in offical publications in our schools, and our teachers are under no obligation to mention even the existence of Moriori in the classrooms of this great inclusive nation of ours. Some school atlases do not even have Rekohu in them.
This is the United Nations Decade of Indigenous people, with the purpose of drawing Native people into decision making, participation and opportunities for acceptance alongside mainstream culture. A seperate and unique people living among the rest.
Moriori are emerging as a people from under the clouds of obscurity and suffering that were heaped upon them, but mainly under their own power and through a peaceful insistence that they be recognised as a people and through playing the game that a colonised society forces them to learn. Justice through the Courts and appeals to Governments have historically fallen on deaf ears. Lately (decades)though with a more sympathetic approach to Maori from Government, Moriori have repeatedly taken a legal position and used the Treaty to its full effect to at least claw back some of which they were deprived of. They will never be given back anywhere near enough of the 97% of the Islands which were stolen through the land court sittings back in the 1870’s, but with appropriate redress they will make a point and hopefully our own Government of today and tomorrow will listen and acknowledge Moriori as a seperate people, who just happen to be Tchakat Henu of Rekohu. Perhaps even Government Departments might even include reference to Moriori in their publications, as they do to Maori. One day we may even see mention of Moriori in the forewords of all education pubications as we do with Maori.
Who knows; maybe a Moriori member of Parliament, or how about a guaranteed Moriori Seat in the House of Representatives. Why not? Maori get a few.
This debate is not about what Maori get, versus what Moriori dont though. Its about justice and redress and fixing the wrongs and ultimately about including Moriori in our society and stop marginalising them. As the late David Lange said: “Moriori are a people. They exist. They will not go away”. Recognise it. Embrace the peaceful philosophies of one of our indigenous peoples.
The ironic, impressive and (for me) overwhelming thing about the whole issue is the way in which Moriori have dealt with the continued oppression: no jumping up and down, no protests, no hikoi’s no threats, no violence or terrorism:
just …..
Peace, pride, determination and as I have come to realise of late; mana!
Me rongo (In peace)
