Moriori are the Indigenous people of Rēkohu and Rangihaute in the Chatham Islands. Their traditions include creation, voyaging, ancestry, adaptation, and the covenant of peace associated with Nunuku. The old claim that Moriori were a pre-Māori people displaced from mainland New Zealand is false.
Creation and first people
Moriori accounts describe Rangi and Papa in darkness and the action of Rangitokona in separating them. Traditions name Rongomaiwhenua and other ancestral lines, and some say people were already present when canoe voyagers arrived. These histories belong to Moriori and should not be replaced by a generic Māori narrative.
Settlement of Rēkohu
Archaeological and linguistic evidence shows Polynesian ancestry shared with Māori. Current research places settlement of the Chatham Islands mainly from New Zealand, with possible direct East Polynesian connections, around the fifteenth century. Isolation and local conditions supported a distinct Moriori culture.
Peace and colonial violence
Nunuku’s law prohibited warfare and became a central ethical tradition. In 1835 invading groups from mainland New Zealand killed and enslaved many Moriori, and colonial land loss compounded the disaster. Moriori survived, maintained identity, and achieved Crown settlement; they are not extinct.