About 500 years ago, some Polynesians, related to Waitaha living on Te Waipounamu, set sail eastwards to islands they called Rēkohu - 'misty skies'. These first settlers are known as Moriori and today the islands are officially named the Chatham Islands. The embarkation coincided with the movement south of early Māori tribe Ngāti Māmoe. All the various Polynesian groups are ethnically and culturally inter-related, but with distinctive family groupings and linguistic dialects. For over 300 years the Moriori culture developed in isolation, with minimal European contact from 1791, until the fateful and traumatic Māori invasion of 1835. This afternoon session will highlight the recent Moriori renaissance and explore the history of the current diverse community living on the Chatham Islands, and the capture and sinking of the Holmwood by German raiders in 1940.
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