Nunuku-whenua was a
Moriori
The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of the ...
chief
Chief may refer to:
Title or rank
Military and law enforcement
* Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force
* Chief of police, the head of a police department
* Chief of the boa ...
who is known for being a sixteenth-century
pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
.
The Moriori, a
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
n people, migrated to the then-uninhabited
Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...
from mainland New Zealand around the year 1500. Following an intertribal conflict, Nunuku-whenua, a prominent Moriori chief of the
Hamata tribe, established "Nunuku's Law", which forbade war, cannibalism and murder.
Moriori obeyed Nunuku's Law strictly, and maintained peace in the Chathams until 1835, when about 900
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
from two
North Island
The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...
iwi
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...
, the
Ngāti Mutunga
Ngāti Mutunga is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, whose original tribal lands were in north Taranaki. They migrated from Taranaki, first to Wellington (with Ngāti Toa and other Taranaki Hāpu), and then to the Chatham Islands (along with ...
and the
Ngāti Tama
Ngāti Tama is a historic Māori iwi of present-day New Zealand which whakapapas back to Tama Ariki, the chief navigator on the Tokomaru waka. The iwi of Ngati Tama is located in north Taranaki around Poutama. The Mōhakatino river marks their ...
, arrived in the Chathams. The invaders had guns and massacred the Moriori, who gathered urgently for a council at
Te Awapātiki. Although youths argued in favour of armed resistance, elders ruled that Nunuku's Law could not be violated for any reason. The Moriori population, conquered and
enslaved, fell from over 1600 in 1835 to less than 100 within thirty years.
Notes
References
* {{cite web
, url= https://teara.govt.nz/en/moriori
, title= Moriori
, last= Davis
, first= Denise
, last2= Solomon
, first2= Māui
, date= 1 March 2017
, orig-date= 8 Feb 2005
, website= Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
, publisher=
Ministry for Culture and Heritage
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH; ) is the department of the New Zealand Government responsible for supporting the arts, culture, built heritage, sport and recreation, and broadcasting sectors in New Zealand and advising government on ...
, access-date= 27 September 2022
Moriori people
New Zealand pacifists
Cannibalism in Oceania
16th-century New Zealand people
People from the Chatham Islands
Pacifism in New Zealand