Moriori

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, which made it easier for Taranaki Māori invaders to nearly exterminate them in the 1830s.
"A pacifist culture developed among the Moriori because of their small population and the small size of Chatham Island.Credit... Cornell Tukiri for The New York Times" Tukiri also has photographed Ancient Moriori carvings on kopi trees and stone carvings on Chatham Island.

Taranaki Māori living at Port Nicolson (modern Wellington) had been meeting for some time to decide on a place to invade. A mass invasion of Samoa or Norfolk Island was considered at a meeting in early 1835 but an invasion of the Chathams was decided on as it was so close and the invaders had details of the Moriori pacifist attitudes from Māori who had visited and returned to New Zealand. In 1835 some Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama people, Māori from the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand, but living in Wellington, invaded the Chathams. On 19 November 1835, the brig Lord Rodney, a hijacked[12] European ship, arrived carrying 500 Māori armed with guns, clubs and axes, and loaded with 78 tonnes of seed potatoes, followed by another ship with 400 more Māori on 5 December 1835.

A Moriori survivor recalled : "[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep.... [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed - men, women and children indiscriminately."

Recent New York Times Article reads: (two sections of long article: Jan. 10, 2022)

"A milestone came late last year when New Zealand’s Parliament approved a settlement over historical injustices suffered by the Moriori. The government agreed to pay the group 18 million New Zealand dollars ($12.3 million), hand over a range of property and grant a degree of control over cultural sites important to the approximately 2,000 people who now identify as Moriori."

"Many Moriori hope the government settlement will reinforce that renaissance and help affirm their Indigenous identity alongside Maori, who make up 17 percent of New Zealand’s five million people. Andrew Little ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Little_(New_Zealand_politician) ), the government minister in charge of treaty negotiations with Maori, said in Parliament that the settlement had started “a journey of revival, reminding the rest of the world, including the rest of New Zealand, that the Moriori are a proud people.”

The settlement took years to achieve in part because of legal challenges from the Maori tribe Ngati Mutunga, whose leadership continues to claim exclusive authority over Chatham Island and fears that amends to Moriori could affect its own settlement. About 700 people, with a mix of European and Indigenous ancestry, live on the Chatham Islands today." (part of Jan 2022's https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/world/australia/moriori-new-zeal... By Pete McKenzie Published Jan. 7, 2022 Updated Jan. 10, 2022

sources

• https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1694/moriori-descendants
• https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/46824/kopinga-marae
• https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1687/19th-century-inhabitants

footnotes

• Cornell Tukiri is an independent photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Auckland, New Zealand having recently returned from Johannesburg, South Africa after six years. He studied at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg where he completed the Photojournalism and Documentary Programme (PDP) in 2013. He has a particular interest in news photography, historical injustice, Māori & Moriori issues, the environment and the stories behind sports. Cornell has been assigned to work for The New York Times, The Times of London, The UK Telegraph, ESPN, The Times South Africa, Quartz and others. His work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, The Independent, The Huffington Post, ESPN Cricinfo, Mana Magazine, The Spinoff and others. At the end of 2014 he held a solo exhibition titled, Uprooted - The People of Sophiatown, where he examined the forced removals of residents of Sophiatown, Johannesburg in the 1950s and 1960s. Cornell was recently selected to show his work at the New York Times Portfolio Review in April 2018.

Please feel free to get in touch - cmtukiri@gmail.com

'Misty Sun'; Māori: Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about 800 kilometres (430 nautical miles) east of New Zealand's South Island.
Major islands: Chatham Island; Pitt Island