Moriori culture wasn’t stupid. It made sense on a totally isolated island with limited but viable resources for a few thousand people and no external visitors for centuries. It only failed when faced with aggressive outsiders who brought their aggressive culture.
So it makes sense for an isolated culture to remember that it probably won’t stay isolated forever. _Para bellum_. Now, getting people to listen is left as an exercise for the reader.
You make the best case I have ever read - against pacifism. And really, defending oneself and one's family against an aggressor is very simple: ask the Ukrainians.
A) Their culture was obviously demonstrated to have a problem. If your culture has a problem, then you should fix it. Or should Westerners forget about trying to mitigate their impact on the environment because their culture is inherently consumerist?
B) Their culture didn't need to be completely abandoned. They didn't need to start *eating* the invaders, for starters.
There's a moral distinction between defending your home and invading someone else's. Once the Maori were repelled, the Moriori could have gone back to pacifism.
Might be an idea to keep a few muskets at hand, of course. Just in case.
"Europeans came along and taught Maori how to be racist" is such a hilariously stupid idea that it's immediately clear that an academic have came up with it.
one of the first things you are told as a new European in the Antipodes is that Maori and Aboriginals are nothing alike, the first fierce warriors the latter peaceful hunter gatherers.
Its simplistic of course but there really is no Aboriginal haka equivalent and their bands rarely seemed to have battles.
Moriori seem to have been a noble human experiment, worthy of a mention in history and I can tell you many modern NZers do know their story
Certainly they are very different cultures, the Maori are genetically closer to Europeans than Aboriginals. Australia is also a vast continent with different language families and different groups. Some did engage in warfare, of a quite ritualised variety, raiding was also common. But you're right that it doesn't compare to the Maori, who built fortified villages, war canoes, specialised weaponry etc.
The Maori were also more technologically advanced than the Aboriginals. Heck, the ancestors of the Maori and Polynesians more generally were even more advanced. They lost technology due to the need to periodically simplify their culture to what can fit in a canoe as they expanded across the Pacific.
The eastern Polynesian culture was a toolkit for ranging across oceans and colonising tropical islands (New Zealand is not in the tropics but it is warm enough to support the garden systems they developed, and it had a reservoir of seals and enormous birds to allow a few centuries of hunter lifestyles while the population established itself). The Polynesian explorer culture was superbly adapted to exploring the Pacific where there were enough uninhabited island groups from Tahiti to Hawaii to Easter Island that they could colonise. Australia was in the wrong direction already had people.
"Colonial encounters motivated behaviour that diverged radically from Māori custom" - this sentence summarizes the entire, the self districtive, mindset of the modern liberalism.
Except that what were seeing from our current batch of self-haters is not liberalism. That fine tradition is to be found in the works of Locke, Smith, Mill et al.
One thing that makes this tragedy difficult to discuss in contemporary New Zealand is a persistent myth that Moriori were an early group of inhabitants of mainland New Zealander who were defeated and driven out to the offshore Chatham Islands by the later, more advanced (and unrelated) Maori. This myth was concocted by some Victorian writers and widely promulgated in colonial New Zealand, probably as an unconscious attempt to justify British settler colonialism. (“The Maori defeated the Moriori so we’re only doing the same as you did to your predecessors, so tough luck but that’s the law of history.”)
It’s total bullshit but as soon as anyone mentions the word Moriori in contemporary New Zealand someone will replay this nonsense. It derails any sensible conversation about colonial history and allows culture warriors on both sides to continue advancing their incomplete narratives.
And of course, it does a huge disservice to the actual Moriori people still living.
The Maori clearly did their damndest to exterminate the Moriori, though, so I'm not sure why the timeline of settlement would be the critical factor there?
Yes, conquest and extermination were the goal of the Maori who invaded the Chathams. My point is that this piece of history was manipulated to create a crude parallel with (slightly later) European settler colonisation of mainland New Zealand. It was a way of justifying settler domination of the natives by a false retelling of pre-European history. And this Victorian justification is still used today.
This obscures the real history of the Moriori people. They are not stick figures to be used to justify settler mistreatment of mainland Maori.
Yes, but white settlers are also not stick figures to be used to justify the moral hypocrisy of indigenous rights activists. The basic point that white settlers were the first group to even have some kind of serious moral debate on this topic is worth remembering.
I’m not disagreeing but I don’t see how this changes anything. My original point was simply that the Maori vs Moriori story ignored an interesting point, namely that many people today still misunderstand and misrepresent history to justify crude and untrue narratives. Moriori were not a primitive group driven from mainland New Zealand. If we could put this nonsense to bed forever it would help with an honest accounting of what actually happened. The reality was bad enough.
My point was tangential. Just saying that in a NZ context this whole subject of oppression and blame is highly charged, so it’s worth clearing up any misinformation that often serves as a distraction.
Slight editing note: "It might be somewhat unfashionable to say today, but there can be doubt that the Māori were a proud ..." appears to be missing a " no " between "... there can be doubt that ..." which is critical to making the author's point.
I would've emailed the author directly but I'm not sure how to message them here.
I know I'm discovering this a year after you posted it, but thank you for this piece. I was completely ignorant of the Moriori, the Chatham Islands, and this entire period in history, and I am better off for knowing about it. Thanks again.
Andre Brett writes: "On the Chatham Islands, colonialism shaped the broader context of warfare and population movement, introduced ideas and language of racial hierarchy to justify extermination and facilitated the encounter between Māori and Moriori. Colonial encounters motivated behaviour that diverged radically from Māori custom."
Yet in 1870, a Māori chief, Te Rakatau Katihe, told the Native Land Court: "We took possession ... in accordance with our custom, and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed; and others also we killed – but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom. I am not aware of any of our people being killed by them."
Moral of the story: If your neighbors say they are going to kill you, throw away your pacifist ideas and learn to fight.
And in the process become your neighbours, abandoning all that made you a distinct culture... Not as simple as you might think.
"...all that made you a distinct culture...."
Better than an extinct culture.
Step 0: Don't have a stupid culture.
Moriori culture wasn’t stupid. It made sense on a totally isolated island with limited but viable resources for a few thousand people and no external visitors for centuries. It only failed when faced with aggressive outsiders who brought their aggressive culture.
So it makes sense for an isolated culture to remember that it probably won’t stay isolated forever. _Para bellum_. Now, getting people to listen is left as an exercise for the reader.
Nothing stupid about avoiding internal violence.
Everything stupid about expecting an aggressive neighbour to play nice.
Avoid both mindless violence and mindless pacificism
Well they lived on an isolated island. Thus for centuries they had no interactions with any neighbors.
You make the best case I have ever read - against pacifism. And really, defending oneself and one's family against an aggressor is very simple: ask the Ukrainians.
I thought of this. But:
A) Their culture was obviously demonstrated to have a problem. If your culture has a problem, then you should fix it. Or should Westerners forget about trying to mitigate their impact on the environment because their culture is inherently consumerist?
B) Their culture didn't need to be completely abandoned. They didn't need to start *eating* the invaders, for starters.
There's a moral distinction between defending your home and invading someone else's. Once the Maori were repelled, the Moriori could have gone back to pacifism.
Might be an idea to keep a few muskets at hand, of course. Just in case.
"Europeans came along and taught Maori how to be racist" is such a hilariously stupid idea that it's immediately clear that an academic have came up with it.
one of the first things you are told as a new European in the Antipodes is that Maori and Aboriginals are nothing alike, the first fierce warriors the latter peaceful hunter gatherers.
Its simplistic of course but there really is no Aboriginal haka equivalent and their bands rarely seemed to have battles.
Moriori seem to have been a noble human experiment, worthy of a mention in history and I can tell you many modern NZers do know their story
Certainly they are very different cultures, the Maori are genetically closer to Europeans than Aboriginals. Australia is also a vast continent with different language families and different groups. Some did engage in warfare, of a quite ritualised variety, raiding was also common. But you're right that it doesn't compare to the Maori, who built fortified villages, war canoes, specialised weaponry etc.
The Maori were also more technologically advanced than the Aboriginals. Heck, the ancestors of the Maori and Polynesians more generally were even more advanced. They lost technology due to the need to periodically simplify their culture to what can fit in a canoe as they expanded across the Pacific.
How come there was no Polynesian colonisation of Australia?
The eastern Polynesian culture was a toolkit for ranging across oceans and colonising tropical islands (New Zealand is not in the tropics but it is warm enough to support the garden systems they developed, and it had a reservoir of seals and enormous birds to allow a few centuries of hunter lifestyles while the population established itself). The Polynesian explorer culture was superbly adapted to exploring the Pacific where there were enough uninhabited island groups from Tahiti to Hawaii to Easter Island that they could colonise. Australia was in the wrong direction already had people.
A cautionary tale for modern Europeans. Bravo!
"Colonial encounters motivated behaviour that diverged radically from Māori custom" - this sentence summarizes the entire, the self districtive, mindset of the modern liberalism.
Except that what were seeing from our current batch of self-haters is not liberalism. That fine tradition is to be found in the works of Locke, Smith, Mill et al.
"Did the Colonialists also provide recipes for cooking your neighbors?" seems the obvious retort to such a silly assertion.
Thanks for this.
The story of each human group, however small, gives us an insight into human nature in general--including our own.
Interesting also how difficult it was for the Moriori to abandon their beliefs, even when, rationally, they were very counterproductive.
It shows how powerful beliefs are for both traditional and contemporary societies.
Totally agree. It is only through examining the worst and best of ourselves that we can begin to understand human nature.
One thing that makes this tragedy difficult to discuss in contemporary New Zealand is a persistent myth that Moriori were an early group of inhabitants of mainland New Zealander who were defeated and driven out to the offshore Chatham Islands by the later, more advanced (and unrelated) Maori. This myth was concocted by some Victorian writers and widely promulgated in colonial New Zealand, probably as an unconscious attempt to justify British settler colonialism. (“The Maori defeated the Moriori so we’re only doing the same as you did to your predecessors, so tough luck but that’s the law of history.”)
It’s total bullshit but as soon as anyone mentions the word Moriori in contemporary New Zealand someone will replay this nonsense. It derails any sensible conversation about colonial history and allows culture warriors on both sides to continue advancing their incomplete narratives.
And of course, it does a huge disservice to the actual Moriori people still living.
The Maori clearly did their damndest to exterminate the Moriori, though, so I'm not sure why the timeline of settlement would be the critical factor there?
Yes, conquest and extermination were the goal of the Maori who invaded the Chathams. My point is that this piece of history was manipulated to create a crude parallel with (slightly later) European settler colonisation of mainland New Zealand. It was a way of justifying settler domination of the natives by a false retelling of pre-European history. And this Victorian justification is still used today.
This obscures the real history of the Moriori people. They are not stick figures to be used to justify settler mistreatment of mainland Maori.
Yes, but white settlers are also not stick figures to be used to justify the moral hypocrisy of indigenous rights activists. The basic point that white settlers were the first group to even have some kind of serious moral debate on this topic is worth remembering.
I’m not disagreeing but I don’t see how this changes anything. My original point was simply that the Maori vs Moriori story ignored an interesting point, namely that many people today still misunderstand and misrepresent history to justify crude and untrue narratives. Moriori were not a primitive group driven from mainland New Zealand. If we could put this nonsense to bed forever it would help with an honest accounting of what actually happened. The reality was bad enough.
Well, I’m not going to argue against a preference for accuracy, it’s just I doubt that inaccuracy was the real bone of contention here.
My point was tangential. Just saying that in a NZ context this whole subject of oppression and blame is highly charged, so it’s worth clearing up any misinformation that often serves as a distraction.
One of the most interesting reads this year !
That's quite the compliment, thank you!
Excellent article old chap - I had never heard of these series of wars before - very interesting indeed.
It certainly adds to my view on human historical interactions.
In short form :
Pacifism is the cowardly refuge of Poets.
Warriors cannot maintain the peace.
Warrior-Poets can rule a world filled by the other two.
Slight editing note: "It might be somewhat unfashionable to say today, but there can be doubt that the Māori were a proud ..." appears to be missing a " no " between "... there can be doubt that ..." which is critical to making the author's point.
I would've emailed the author directly but I'm not sure how to message them here.
Doesn't even seem real, and so recent! A lesson in humanity for sure. Pacifism is only as strong as your nearest neighbor. Great article, thanks!
I know I'm discovering this a year after you posted it, but thank you for this piece. I was completely ignorant of the Moriori, the Chatham Islands, and this entire period in history, and I am better off for knowing about it. Thanks again.
You're very welcome, I'm glad people are still reading the piece and getting something from it
Great article
Thanks! Happy so many people liked it
Great article!!! Thanks for enlightening me about this sorry part of history. Yep, it's not about just the "bad white men".
Andre Brett writes: "On the Chatham Islands, colonialism shaped the broader context of warfare and population movement, introduced ideas and language of racial hierarchy to justify extermination and facilitated the encounter between Māori and Moriori. Colonial encounters motivated behaviour that diverged radically from Māori custom."
Yet in 1870, a Māori chief, Te Rakatau Katihe, told the Native Land Court: "We took possession ... in accordance with our custom, and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed; and others also we killed – but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom. I am not aware of any of our people being killed by them."
I thought only white colonisers committed atrocities
I'm performing the anti-racist function of highlighting how equally violent most cultures were
That's the essence of the "stolen land built on stolen labor" narrative that seems to go unrebutted in elite discourse.
Someone needs to write a book about all the bad things non-European cultures have done.