Moriori

The Moriori are the indigenous ethnic-group of the Chatham Islands (Rekohu in the Moriori language), east of the New Zealand archipelago.

Although some say the Moriori were a Polynesian people who settled on the Chatham Islands via an independent migration from the equatorial Polynesian islands, many scholars now say Moriori were simply Maori from the lower South Island who migrated to the Chathams.

The Moriori embraced a pacifistic culture which rigidly avoided warfare. Maori from the North Island of New Zealand settled the Chathams in 1835 and slaughtered, cannibalised and enslaved the Moriori who did not wish to fight. The notion that the Moriori were completely wiped-out by Maori is untrue. However, the last fully-blooded Moriori, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933. There are thousands of Moriori descendants alive today, and indeed, some of them have made claims through the Waitangi Tribunal.

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