Nunuku-whenua

Nunuku-whenua was a Moriori chief who has become famous as a sixteenth-century pacifist.

The Moriori, a Polynesian people, migrated to the then-uninhabited Chatham Islands from mainland New Zealand around the year 1500.[1] Following an intertribal conflict, Nunuku-whenua, a prominent Moriori chief of the Hamata tribe, established "Nunuku's Law", which forbade war, cannibalism and murder.[2]

Moriori obeyed Nunuku's Law strictly, and maintained peace in the Chathams until 1835, when about 900 Māori from two North Island iwi, the Ngāti Mutunga and the Ngāti Tama, 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.[3]

References
  1. "Origins of the Moriori people", Denise Davis and Māui Solomon, Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, New Zealand Ministry of Culture and Heritage: "Current research indicates that Moriori came to the Chatham Islands from New Zealand about 1500."
  2. Davis, Denise; Solomon, Māui (1 March 2017) [2005]. "Moriori - The migrations from Hawaiki". Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 12 December 2020. At this time, Nunuku-whenua, a high-ranking chief (said by Moriori to be one of the Hamata tribe and also related to Moe) forbade murder and the eating of human flesh.
  3. "The impact of new arrivals", ibid.
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