THE LAST HOME OF THE MORIORI by E. D. Woollett The Chatham Islands were the home of the Moriori, who are still the mystery people of New Zealand. Their artistic relics still excite the greatest admiration, and the little that is known about them whets the curiosity, for they were a singular people. Recent evidence seems to show that they came to New Zealand no earlier than the main migrations in the thirteenth century, and also—quite definitely —that they were of Polynesian descent. They probably travelled right through New Zealand before the majority of them settled in the Chatham Islands. Why did they die out? That is also a mystery. It is known that the invasion of the Taranaki tribes caused great slaughter amongst them, but whether this was due to any basic inferiority of the Moriori is hard to say. Tradition has it that a famous chief of the Moriori laid it down that arguments should cease as soon as blood was drawn, and it is said the Moriori followed his command. Few people in New Zealand realise that five hundred miles east of Christchurch, across wild and empty seas, lies a fully constituted county of the Dominion. Its council administers a thriving farming community of five hundred people that is very much like many a New Zealand back country district. Much has been written about the group of islands, chiefly about their early history and the terrifying list of shipwrecks, but little is known by the ‘man in the street’ of life and conditions existing today. The group of islands, ranging from one of 355 square miles in area to mere rocks, the home of the giant albatross, was named by a Lieutenant Broughton, of H.M.S. Chatham, and claimed on behalf of His Majesty King George III, in 1791. The islands were then occupied by numerous Moriori. Maori invaders from New Zealand, on fishing expeditions, found the Moriori a poor defender of their land, and in 1835 a large party from the Taranaki tribes, in a commandeered ship, the Lord Rodney, occupied the main island, killing or enslaving the inhabitants. Disease and degradation took their toll, and in 1933, the Moriori became extinct with the death of Te Rangitapua (Tommy Solomon). Shipwrecks have been frequent, because of the position of the islands on the early shipping routes from Australia to Cape Horn, dur- Moriori tree carving on ‘kopi’ tree (Chatham word for karaka) on northern coast of Chathams. Carvings, made on live trees, did not affect their growth, and this one is of considerable age.