Early Maori settlers of Wharekauri

Wharekauri

The small group of islands some 800 kms south east of Wellington, today has a population of about 700 people, of mixed ethnicity.

Wharekauri as it is known, has just two inhabited islands, Wharekauri and Rangiauria, and a number of other smaller islands, such as Rangatira, Mangere, Motuhope, The Sisters and the Forty Fours.

Rangiauria, today, has just forty people living on it.

The islands were named after a kainga, built at the northen end of the main island, out of some kauri logs that had washed up there. There were several Maori settlers living on the islands before 1830 and it was they who gave it this name. They returned to New Zealand  and referred to Chathams as Wharekauri: house made of kauri.

Several Maori crew, from an American Whaler, returned to New Zealand after visiting the Islands in 1834 and found their tribes sheltering in Port Nicholson, having been defeated in battles  in their own Taranaki homelands. They told their people that Wharekauri was ‘he whenua kai’ a land of food. It is full of birds, both land and sea, the lakes swarm with eels, albatross live on all of the islands and there is an abundance of sea and shellfish. Also the natives are very numerous, but they don’t know how to fight and have no weapons.

In 1835 the two tribes, Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama , both part of the larger Te Ati Awa Iwi, sent some 900 people to Wharekauri, in two voyages. When they arrived, they were weakened from their voyage and many were sick. The natives looked after them and nursed them back to health. Once all were ready, they  began to ‘takahi’, which means taking possession of the island by “walking the land.” This was their custom.

Once specific areas had been claimed by each of the chiefs, the natives were told that they no longer owned the land. Any disagreement or argument resulted in a blow to the head with a tomahawk. One thousand of the natives, including 160 chiefs,  met for 3 days at Te Awapatiki to discuss this development. The younger men wanted to fight, but the older, wiser men refused to let them break Nunuku's law. The Maori discovered that they had met so went on the offensive, in case Moriori attacked them. They slaughtered hundreds and left them for the birds, others were eaten. In one oven alone 50 Moriori were roasted and eaten. At Waitangi the Moriori population was nearly wiped out, with a line of bodies on the beach touching each other, over quarter of a mile long. This clearly established ownership under Maori custom. The Europeans that were living on the Islands did not interfere.

Having established ownership, the next hurdle for the Maori was between the two tribes, as eventually Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama went to war with each other. The fighting lasted until 1842 when a party of Church of England Maori Missionaries arrived on the islands.

Life was not always easy for the Maori settlers and they initially had to rely on trading for provisions such as flour, sugar and salt from visiting ships.

Eventually, seeing the success of their European counterparts, some settlers began to grow potatoes, corn and flour for trade. Fortunately for them, there were still plenty of Moriori slaves left  to do all of the work, although they were diminishing in number significantly.

In 1867 many Maori had to return to Taranaki for land court hearings there. In fact when the 1870 land court hearing was held in Waitangi, there were only about 20 Maori present on the islands and 90 Moriori. Moriori petitioned the courts in 1870, to try and regain ownership of their land. The courts awarded them 3% and the 97% reminder went to Maori.

Over the years Maori and Moriori married and had children and although the last full blooded Moriori died in 1933, Moriori still live on Wharekauri and in New Zealand. Many Wharekauri Maori can whakapapa back to both Maori and Moriori ancestors.