Talk:Moriori
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[edit] Wiped out?
Claims that the Moriori were 'wiped out' by Maori are untrue.
- How does slaughtering, canabalising and enslaving a group does not count as wiping out? There is not one single full-blooded Moriori remaining as a consequence.
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- I agree with you, up to a point. I do think the full-bloodedness (or the lack of it) argument is something of a red herring - where, for that matter, are the full blooded Angels, the full blooded Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, etc. that colonized England in ancient times? Even without enslavement and genocide, intermarriage would have taken its course, as happens when any two cultures live in proximity for any length of time. Having said that, I agree that what happened on the Chatham Islands was genocide. David Cannon 12:00, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
perhaps you meant full blooded ANGLES? Gringo300 08:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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- I agree with David mostly. You seem confused. Although the Māori might have commited genocide in the modern definition, the Moriori still exist and so there is no way you can say they were wiped out by the Māori anymore then you can say the Aboriginal people were wiped out by the Australian European colonists or that the Māori were wiped out by the Pakeha colonists. Nil Einne 09:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] How many?
From what I know, the Chatham didn't support many people (with the technology available to the Moriori). Could you estimate how many Moriori lived there? Even roughly: hundreds? thousands?
- The Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal estimates around 2000 before the invasion with that figure falling by 90% by 1870. Alan 03:35, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Categories
I've put this in the Category:Maori, but it seems wrong there. Any suggestions? [[User:Grutness|Grutness talk 
]] 09:48, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Moriori origin confusion
I'm somewhat confused by what the article says. On the one hand it states that "ancestral Moriori migrated as Māori from ... New Zealand about 1500 AD". On the other hand it states that it is an "unsubstantiated myth that the 'Moriori' ... originally inhabited New Zealand before the fairer-skinned Māori arrived".
Although I acknowledge that the two statements do not necessarily contradict each other, they still leave me somewhat confused as to the origin of the Moriori.
I believe that a clarification is required. What is myth and what is assumed to be correct? --Oz1cz 09:29, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
Why call it a "debunked" myth? Also, please source the scholars who now agree about the origin of the Moriori, and whether these scholars opinions are the majority or not.
- I don't quite get your confusion. Ancestral Moriori migrated from the Māori to the Chatam Islands in around 1500 AD as stated. While specific details vary, I don't think there are any scholars of any sort who disputre that the Moriori originated from the Māori or that they were originally localised to the Chatam Islands. However there used to be a myth (actually taught in school!) that the Moriori were a dark skinned race of people who inhabited NZ b4 the fairer skinned Māori took over and slaughtered them. As said in the article, this myth was seen as a justification for the later European colonisation of NZ and for their actions towards the Māori. (The Māori did it to the Moriori, we're just doing the same thing, it's the natural order). However this myth has been more of less completely debunked and I don't think any serious scholar beliefs it any more. The only time you ever hear this myth is when some idiot writes to the paper complaining about some perceived injustice or perceived bias towards Māori Nil Einne 09:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- Nil Einne has it right. It is amazing how these old myths keep rearing their heads long after it has been demonstrated that there is no evidence in support of them. Kahuroa 05:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Not so quickly. The problem here is actually two: a) the assumption that the Moriori were of "racially distinct stock", and b) the assumption that the Moriori trace back to earlier immigrants than "mainstream" or "modern" Māori culture (i.e., post-moa-hunting period, that is, evolving around 1300-1400ish as the resource base shifted from big-game hunting towards agriculture and marine resources), and might never have had much to do with that. The first concept is not correct at all, whereas the second is entirely possible and will be subject of debate in the immediate future considering the recent Rattus exulans paper which has shifted the debate back again to the state some 15 years ago, sans some knee-jerk stuff. "Mainstream" Māori culture seems more likely than not not to have one single origin, instead being the product of at least two major and several minor immigrations that possibly started as early as c.850AD, and had more evolutionary leeway before the depletion of big game shifted carrying capacity (downwards unless the resource base changed, which it did, and the modern Māori culture is a direct consequence and product of this). Given that the process of "agriculturalization" had a roughly N -> S trajectory, and given the Moriori-Kāi Tahu similarity and the home turf of the latter, the underlying idea could be expressed by saying "the Moriori are fairly direct descendants of the very first Māori", but more research in the relationship between the Kāi Tahu and the (far north) Ngāti Porou is needed to resolve the history of the former.
- The point is that the earliest "proto-Māori" were altogether absorbed into a more unified Māori culture later on on the mainland (a significantly distinct "early immigrant" culture could have only developed on S Island in any case if at all), but that the Moriori may have been emigrated from the mainland early enough not to have been much participated in this homogenization process. A lot of genealogical and subsequent haplotype studies will be needed to really shed light on this question. Dysmorodrepanis 14:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] origin of name
I shortened the convoluted sentence (partly my fault) about the origin and meaning of the word moriori. Kahuroa 05:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Merged article
I've merged most of the content from Moriori of The Chatham Islands, a more recent article on the same subject. I'm not sure that what I've added is correct, or that I haven't missed something, so feel free to check. -- Avenue 01:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
