Wikipedia
Moriori are the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in Moriori, Wharekauri in Māori), east of the New Zealand archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. These people lived by a code of non-violence and passive resistance (see Nunuku-whenua), which made it easier for Taranaki Māori invaders to nearly exterminate them in the 1830s.
During the early 20th century it was commonly, but erroneously, believed that the Moriori were pre-Māori settlers of New Zealand, linguistically and genetically different from the Māori, and possibly Melanesian. This story, incorporated into Percy Smith's " Great Fleet" hypothesis, was widely believed during the early 20th century. However the hypothesis was not always accepted.
By the late 20th century the hypothesis that the Moriori were different from the Māori had fallen out of favour amongst archeologists, who believed that the Moriori were Māori who settled on the Chatham Islands in the 16th century. The earlier hypothesis was discredited in the 1960s and 1970s.
Moriori may refer to:
- Moriori people
- Moriori language
Usage examples of "moriori".
The Moriori were a small, isolated population of hunter-gatherers, equipped with only the simplest technology and weapons, entirely inexperienced at war, and lacking strong leadership or organization.
The Moriori reverted to being hunter-gatherers, while the North Island Maori turned to more intensive farming.
Groups of Maori began to walk through Moriori settlements, announcing that the Moriori were now their slaves, and killing those who objected.
An organized resistance by the Moriori could still then have defeated the Maori, who were outnumbered two to one.
However, the Moriori had a tradition of resolving disputes peacefully.
Before the Moriori could deliver that offer, the Maori attacked en masse.
Over the course of the next few days, they killed hundreds of Moriori, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all the others, killing most of them too over the next few years as it suited their whim.
The brutal outcome of this collision between the Moriori and the Maori could have been easily predicted.
Of course, when the two groups finally came into contact, it was the Maori who slaughtered the Moriori, not vice versa.
The tragedy of the Moriori resembles many other such tragedies in both the modern and the ancient world, pitting numerous well-equipped people against few ill-equipped opponents.
In the centuries after the two groups separated, they evolved in opposite directions, the North Island Maori developing more-complex and the Moriori less-complex technology and political organization.
Within that medium-sized test, the fate of the Moriori forms a smaller test.
It is easy to trace how the differing environments of the Chatham Islands and of New Zealand molded the Moriori and the Maori differently.
With no other accessible islands to colonize, the Moriori had to remain in the Chat-hams, and to learn how to get along with each other.
Thus, Moriori and Maori societies developed from the same ancestral society, but along very different lines.