Moriori settlers of Early Rekohu

Rekohu

The small group of islands some 800 kms south east of Wellington, today has a population of about 700 people, of Moriori, European and Maori descent.

Rekohu as it is known to the original inhabitants, the Moriori, has just two inhabited islands and a number of other smaller islands, rocks and islets. Rangiauria, or Pitt Island has just forty people living on it.

The islands are the home of the Moriori and they had lived here undisturbed for several hundred years.

Some say that the Moriori came to Rekohu about the same time as the Maori arrived in New Zealand. Most scholars and historians agree that Moriori came from the same place as Maori and that they developed their differences, in language and tradition, in isolation on Rekohu. The recorded stories claim that Moriori left their homelands of Hawaiki (Tonga/Rarotonga?) to escape the continual inter-tribal fighting.

The conditions and the environment that Moriori lived in were harsher than where they had come from and they would have had to adapt their lifestyles to suit the challenging conditions on Rekohu.

Ancient Moriori on Rēkohu killed only the old male seals and left no carcasses on the rocks, as this would deter the seals from returning. But English sealers in the early 1800s destroyed the island’s seal colonies, depriving Moriori of their main source of food and clothing.

At its peak, the Moriori population reached about 2,000.

The people belonged to nine tribes: Hamata, Wheteina, Eitara, Etiao, Harua, Makao, Matanga, Poutama and Rauru.

To keep the population down to a level that the environment could cope with, some male infants were castrated.. To prevent inbreeding, marriage between first, second and third cousins was strictly forbidden.

Moriori society was 'egalitarian' compared to that of other Polynesian peoples. Ieriki (chiefs) were chosen for their ability in a vital role, such as fishing or bird catching, rather than on the basis of heredity.

Killing was outlawed on Rekohu and disagreements were settled with a ‘duel’ using slim staffs, but had to end immediately when blood was drawn.

This law was known as Nunuku’s law.

This covenant of peace is central to Moriori philosophy and to break it meant loss of mana and ostracism from the tribe. That in itself meant certain death for the offender. To survive in the harsh conditions required community co-operation.

The Moriori had weapons and trained in the arts of using them. Moriori had stone adzes, of varying shapes and sizes, some of which were as carefully crafted as any Maori greenstone adze, and many just as sharp and functional. Moriori also had spears and stakes and these were all used in the gathering of food.

The Moriori  had no real musical instruments apart from the fact that waiata were sung, so in effect their musical instruments were their voices. Children played games and adults gathered food, firewood and made the tools of the day.

Moriori developed an unusual but very practical method of sea transportation, by using flax and seaweed to construct their waka. The seaweed, or bull kelp, was inflated and placed in the bottom of the framework of the waka. The framework was the wood from the harapepe, or flax. The idea was that the bladder of kelp gave buoyancy and the flax, stability. The unusual design meant that the sea washed through the craft, as it had no skin.

The Moriori population decline began after contact with Europeans. When sealing gangs and whalers began to call at the Chathams, they bought with them diseases that the Moriori had never been exposed to and had no immunity for.  Simple illnesses, such as measles or chicken pox, may have killed many Moriori.