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Four generations of New Zealanders were openly taught to vilify the people (Moriori) of Rekohu (Chatham Island) as a degenerate people, deficient in intelligence and morals, alleging that they were driven out of New Zealand by the superior Maori, to take final refuge as a pitiful remnant of a primitive and vanquished people.
No other group of people in the world has been subjected to group slander as intense and as damaging as that heaped upon the Moriori.
They were regarded as the lowest in God's hierarchy of created beings by Christians and regarded by non Christians as living proof of the Darwinian precept that only the fit survive.
After 1835 Maori colonists despised them, enslaved them for a generation and referred to them contemptuously in the borrowed currency of racism as 'black fellas.'
They were also perceived and portrayed as fat, greedy with glutinously repulsive lips and with a brute appetite for food, sex and sleep.
In the past few years there has been an awakening of descendants and kinsmen whom, (beforehand, had allowed their inheritance of Moriori blood to be consigned to oblivion,) have now stood up and taken ownership of their superbly adapted peaceful culture, that, despite being their downfall in the end, had seen them survive as a people against all odds in an otherwise harsh natural environment of Rekohu.
These people are, tchakat henu, guardians of the mana of Rekohu.
Hirawanu Tapu (2nd l St), Rohana (2nd l Si),Tatua (2nd R St),(these three were teens when they were enslaved and served as slaves for over two decades). Wari Tutaki (L), Teretiu Rehe (3rd L St), Rangitapua Horomona Rehe (4th L St), Piripi (Far R), Ngakikingi (Mid, Si) & Te Tene Rehe (N R)
On 27th November 1791, during a storm Broughton's ship was battered in a severe sea swell, two days later he happened upon a small uncharted island. He was later to find out that it was named Rekohu.
Broughton's arrival on that fateful day saw the begining of the end for the Moriori who had been isolated from any other human beings for at least 400 years if not longer. They had thought themselves to be the only humans in the world and their culture had slowly evolved along with the survival of the people in line with the law of ancient ancestor Nunuku whenua.
Nunuku became sickened by bloodshed and cannibalism while two tribes, Rauru and Wheteina were fighting at Kawera on the western side of Te Whanga lagoon.
Nunuku forced the warring sides apart and asked the question, "Are we fish who eat their young?"
He made them build a fire and place their weapons on top of it and they were burned. Nunuku then said, "Rauru and Wheteina rise and meet. Touch nose to nose. Listen all, from today never again let there be war."
He then had the youngest, fittest man from each tribe stand an arms length from each other and placed in their hand a stick no thicker than their thumb and no longer than their arm, at which point they were told to strike each other. The first to draw blood was deemed the victor, "and all honour will be considered satisfied. This is the way war shall be observed."
All obeyed from that day forth as Nunuku placed also a curse on those who may be tempted to flout the law, "May your bowels rot the day you disobey this law."
From that day forth, no war was ever fought, nor person tempted to do so.
Black Fish (Pilot Whales) have beached themselves on Rekohu as long as it has been inhabited. They were seen as gifts from the gods Tagaroa and Pou, and their appearance was often associated with human death. They buried their dead sitting up in the sand facing the sea and not long after, Black Fish would beach themselves and the Moriori would harvest them as a food source.
Rekohu basalt, was used to make adzes and chisels. They often look like neolithic ruins, heaped up all around the island in dykes and columns.
Not many years after Broughton's accidental discovery, Maori sailed to Rekohu looking for new land, having been disposessed of their own by opposing Maori tribes in war.
They sent a team of scouts to sound the Moriori out and approached them, at first, peacefully posing as friends interested in a mutual partnership.
They saw that Rekohu would be easily taken as the Moriori did not war with each other and in fact did not possess even the knowledge of how to strategise for war and would not oppose oppression through violent means for fear of the curse of Nunuku. Thus they drew their plans against them.
5 December 1835, 500 Maori invaded and easily killed and enslaved the Moriori, taking their land, their beliefs and their mana. They killed, ate and enslaved the Moriori for many years and often Moriori slaves were forced to watch the dogs of the Maori invaders eating the remains of their kin folk, which was total dessimation of even their basic beliefs that each life is sacred. They were shattered and scattered and most 'lost' to their homeland Rekohu.
It has been said that whenever a Moriori child was born that a dendroglyph was carved into a tree. Another dendroglyph was carved into the same tree upon their death and is said to tell the story of their life.
"They commenced to kill us like sheep...wherever we were found...In the bush on the oka ohere, some of our people were eaten and others thrown to the birds of heaven." Hirawanu Tapu
"We were terrified, we fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes in the ground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail, we were discovered and killed, men, women and children indescriminately." Minarapa & Kaingaroa Moriori
" Te Wharekura and his hapu at Te Raki killed and roasted 50 Moriori in one oven" Shand.
In the Native Land Courts in 1880, Maori said that they had deliberately killed at least 300 Moriori during the invasion, along with numerous children. 1,336 Moriori were said to have died from 'despair'.
In 1840 Ernst Dieffenbach (NZ Company scientist)found the Moriori in a very bad way. "Their present state of degradation may be ascribed to the misery which they suffer from the oppressive sway of the Maori. They are the labourers and porters of their masters, who have no notion of moderation in the labour they exact; so that ulcerated backs bent almost double, and emaciated paralytic limbs, with diseased lungs, are the ordinary lot of these ill-fated wretches, to whom death must be a blessing." Ernst Dieffenbach
"With regret we inform you of the death of Tame Horomona Rehe, the last pure-blooded survivor of the ancient Moriori people. His passing is widely regretted, not only because of the strange and tragic story of his people, thus brought to a close, but because of the kindly and genial qualities of the man that left pleasant memories with all who met him."
(wired from Rekohu using Morse code from Rekohu radio station the day Tame died)
Tame (aged 33)
Tame (aged 14)
Tame Horomona Rehe, the last surviving full blooded Moriori grew up Maori, and yet he did hold to himself some of the cultural aspects of his true ancestors.
He sang Moriori waiata, and he stressed to his children that the Moriori antecedents were something of which they should take pride.
In particular he emphasised the virtue of Nunuku's law over that of other people and nations (only fight til you draw blood, then stop), and the signs that were associated with death...strange animals appearing on the foreshore and the pods of stranded Black Fish.
He stressed too, the need to remove fish and shellsifh from the shore before they were prepared for eating.
Whenever the children discovered skulls on their farm, Tame made them immediately go back and bury them where they found them; Tame respected the presence of his ancestors.
The other obvious way in which Tame showed himself to be Moriori was in his visiting of other people of Moriori descent. Most of them gathered at Tame's homestead for meals, card games or both and they looked to Tame as their leader.
Tame possessed an almost mystical quality, something that no one else had, he was 'pure Moriori' a claim that could not be made by anyone else, not even his own children.
(Tame's first wife was a woman by the name of Ada Fowler of Arowhenua, and she was half Maori and part Malay. She was barren and died at age 30.)
Tame married again after her death, the girl (Whakarawa Rene, [his first wife Ada's niece]) was 16, he was 31. They had five children.
Tame's father, Rangitapau
Tame (just before his death in 1933)
...his gregariousness and sense of mischief was legendary...
In Christchurch with his father in 1901 he asked for money to spend, knowing it was going to go on alcohol his father refused. Tame promptly stole and forged one of his father's cheques. At court a warning was issued. Tame left the court and on the way out stole a bike. He was returned to court and got 12 months imprisonment.
"This boy is a man and could give many convicts many points in downright badness." Chudleigh.
Many claimed that Tame did not have a calculating bone in his body and never intended or caused harm to anyone. He simply did not foresee the consequences of his impulsive pranks or sleights of hand.
His father then (in an attempt to get Tame to settle down) arranged his marriage to Ada, and it had the desired effect.
Though even as an adult, his charisma combined with his procilvity for being an impulsive prankster saw him get into still more scrapes with the law.
He also liked to show off.
He asked a Japanese seaman to show him all the holds of ju-jitsu and when Constable H. Scott tried to remove him from the Mangoutu pub, Tame had a counter-move for every hold the Constable tried to use to remove him. In the end the Constable allowed Tame to leave the pub under his own steam.
...sculptor... MARINUS VAN KOOTEN...
This is a statue of Tame Horomona Rehe, sculpted by Marinus Van Kooten, who lives in Huntly, New Zealand.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Marinus back in 2003 and I have over three hours of audio tape in which he told me how he came to be asked to do this sculpture for the descendants of Tame. He also told me a lot of stories of odd things that happened while he was working on this project and of his visit to Rekohu for the placing of the statue. It is fascinating and I will place a transcript of the interview so that it does not become lost. As far as I know, I am the only person who has got the comprehensive story of the statue of Tame, and the subsequent stories from Tame's family about him and about them etc.
The following interview was conducted in March of 2003 in Huntly New Zealand
Sarah. Where were you born?
Marinus. Holland in Langbroek ,which means Long Swamp and I attended Cothen Primary School in Cothen. I left Holland when I was 35 and came to New Zealand.
Was schooled in Holland and never studied art at school, it just came natural to me.
Sarah. What was your first piece of sculpting?
Marinus. In primary school we had these handcraft lessons and I made a little bus about 4 inches high out of clay. The teacher put it at the top of a cabinet and that was the end of it.
I read a lot, and when I came here I kept translating the English words into Dutch and through doing that I kept losing the plot of what I was reading and so I soon lost interest in reading after that. I started sitting in front of the TV and my wife told me not to be a couch potato and when she said that I remembered that little bus I made at school. She told me to get a bag of potter’s clay and so I did and I started pottering around.
Sarah. So how did you go from that to being commissioned to do that Tame statue?
Marinus. Oh um, I think I better tell the whole story. I was making buses out of clay for the kids at the school and the parents saw them and asked me to come to do a modelling session at the Gala day. Then I heard that there was a guy in Orewa who built a shopping centre there and he wanted to build a plastic Everest that you could walk into and play on but the Council wouldn’t approve it. So I went and saw him and told him that I wouldn’t mind making a statue of Sir Edmund Hillary. So he got a committee together and approved it. It was in Orewa and it got vandalised, they whacked off his nose and so they put a bronze one up and the concrete one is at Hillary college.
And then I read an article in the paper that the Moriori wanted to make a statue of Tame. It was quite a big article and they were asking people for help and donations. I said that I could help them do a concrete one instead of bronze, they said yeah fine.
Sarah. How long did it take to make?
Marinus. It took about eight weeks actual work, but it took months to work up to it.
Sarah. I have seen it, it is very good, very lifelike.
Marinus. Ah yes but that is a bit of a story, a bit of a strange one.
Sarah. Did you go down to Rekohu to make the statue?
Marinus. No, just did it in my garage here at home.
Sarah. So how did it get taken down there?
Marinus. Um, I made it in parts, and it was assembled on the island.
Sarah. Did you go to Rekohu to assemble it?
Marinus. Yes I did.
Sarah. How long did that take?
Marinus. Oh not that long, maybe a week.
Sarah. When you made the statue, were there any guidelines or cultural things you were told about?
Marinus. I was given a photograph and it had to be in his likeness and um in that photograph he had a hat on so there was shade on his face. And I had to have a committee to judge the statue when it was first made in clay, four or five of them came and no more. Benny, Dennis and Maui Solomon (Horomona/Rehe), all were related to Tame, they were all his grandchildren, quarter Moriori.
They hated the first clay one I made, they walked around it for ages and didn’t say anything. I was thinking, why aren’t they saying anything and then I walked away.
When I came back they said,“Nah its Bunty, looks like Bunty the guy off the council in Rekohu.” I said that I did not know any Bunty and they just looked at me and said, “Its Bunty.” So they went and got another photo from when Tame was twenty, but it all, from there it went pretty weird. I was working with some tools in the garage and I pulled the thing out and it was looking straight at me, it was that strong that I just stepped back and stared. From there on I was nearly finished and the three came back again to look, Benny he went up close to the statue and looked into his eyes and he asked me, “What have you done to his eyes?” I said, “I know,” and he backed right away from the statue. I don’t know how I did it, I don’t know how it came out like that, I have no idea, but the bugger followed you wherever you went with his eyes.
It is on Rekohu (Chathams) there at Manakau Point and people walk past going to the sea and they will not stare at it, they will walk from the beach backward so that they do not have to look at it.
Sarah. It is very hard to find out who made this statue, I had to ring several people on the island and a lady there gave me your name and when I put it in a google search, everything came up in Dutch.
So I rang the lady back up and told her I couldn’t find you and I wondered if whether you were Australian or something and left the country and she said, “Oh no he is from Auckland.” So I rang Telecom and they could find nothing in Auckland and so did a nationwide search and only found one Van Kooten, and that is how I found you.
Marinus. Well that is so strange because there are hundreds of Van Kootens in this country, so strange that they only found me.
Sarah. (Ponders weirdness of that too.)
(Marinus went on to tell me about the processes he used to make the statue, that in itself was fascinating, but it was the stories associated with the adventure of making it that struck me most.)
Sarah. Is the statue facing out to sea or inland?
Marinus. He is facing out to sea.
Sarah. I wondered about that, about the significance of that because I know that Moriori used to bury their dead facing out to sea, so was that a factor in the facing of the statue of Tame out to sea?
Marinus. Yes, but I did not know of the custom at the time. They regularly still find skulls on the beach there.
Sarah. Yeah, that's kind of creepy. Did the family request that Tame be facing out to sea or was there no other way that the statue could be situated?
Marinus. Yes the family asked that and the place where it is, it has to face the sea anyway. When we started off they knew very little of their own ancestory. The unveiling was crazy, people came up to me shaking their heads asking, “How did you do that? It is exactly him.”I said I had no idea. The only time I realised how strong the likeness between the man and the statue was was when trhere was a program with Gary Mc Cormack on it, he did a couple of things on the Chathams. They had it on TV and they had a pic of Tame on profile and they merged it into the statue and you couldn’t see the difference. It was very weird because in everything to do with the statue we all felt as though we had been predestined to fulfil each of our roles within it, it was weird.
Sarah. Well it is a really sad story, the story of the Moriori.
Marinus. Yeah.
Sarah. That well, I mean because, even though it (the statue) is a celebration of a culture, but it is a lament to the passing of one also.
Marinua. The Moriori had some very strong tapu on the island. And the Maori desecrated all the tapu on the island when they invaded, women became barren, just sat in front of the huts and died. The younger boys wanted to defend the island from the Maori, and then the elders came together from the seven tribes and they said no, we have lived for 600 years in peace and because of the Nunuku law we will stay in peace. And it buggered them, but that was war.
Sarah. But I think it was a little more barbaric for them in that they were a peace loving people, they had severe penalties for anyone who broke the law themselves.
Marinua. Yes Nunuku said, "May their bowels rot.”
Sarah. At the same time they never actually imposed that kind of harsh treatment on outside people. One time one of their men were shot by the captain of a ship and they took responsibility for it because they thought that maybe they had frightened the sailors and that was why one of their people got shot. So they left gifts for the sailors on the beach to say that they were sorry, even though they were the ones whop had sustained loss.
Marinus. There is a whaling pot left on Rekohu in memory of the sailors of the HMS Chatham, the boat from which the man was shot.
Sarah. What cultural considerations did you have to take into account when making and placing the statue on Rekohu?
Marinus. None. But because they knew bugger all about their culture, but during the whole process a lot of information came in and it turned out that the way we went about it even was wrong.
Sarah. In what way?
Marinus. I got a phone call from Maui, who was in charge of the whole thing and he asked me if I wanted to give an interview to Sid Bird for Tutangata and I said that’s fine. A couple of weeks later I got a phone call and he asked me to go to him so I went there and I tried to tell him as much as possible and the spiritual significance of it. I told him I was going to be giving a speech at the unveiling. Anyway he became totally disrespectful and asked, “Do you even know what you are involved in?" I asked him, “What do you mean?” He said,“You are going to be rangatira.”I just said, "Yeah yeah,” I didn’t know what a rangatira is because I knew nothing of it, Anyhow I went home and anyway I looked in the Maori/English dictionary and I looked it up and it is a respected elder or chief. And I thought, well I can’t be that because I am not old enough. I knew nothing of it eh, and I thought that maybe they are doing something like Indians do. Anyway later on I got invited to Maui’s place in Napier and so we went there and I said to Maui that I had a really weird interview with Sid Bird, are you going to make me a rangatira? And he exploded and he went mad and I did not know what was going on and the next morning we had breakfast and Maui came in and said,“F@#* this rangatira thing.”I said if that is the case then I am not speaking at all at the ceremony. Bugger it.
By that time the statue was on the Chathams and that week I got wild and it was on the Tuesday that I said to my wife that I am going to buy a ticket, put my statue together and f@#* off, I want nothing more to do with it.
Then I went to bed, and you get to that place where you are not alseep but you are nto awake and I had a horrible vision thing where I was attacked by a whole group of greyish people. So in the dream I went to the farmhouse and Gary was living there, (grandson of Tommy) and I said, “Gary look man I am not going there on my own again.”
And so he went with me and we were at the statue site and his eyes flew open and went top attack me and so I turned to run and there standing there was Tame with and old stick in his hand and a smile on his face. So I ran to him thinking he would help me and he raised his stick and hit me on the head and I was dead. Maui was around there later on and Maui says to Gary we gotta bury him so they load me into a dinghy and row around to Manukau point into a cave with water and left me on a ledge. Every time I woke and went back to sleep I returned to the dream.
Next thing I was at a place and Maui was there too and I knew that that far under the ground a body was lying there and in the right hand (face down). So I started digging and I said to Maui, “you have to pick it up I cannot, I am not allowed.”
The next morning I woke up it was like the dream was bright in my mind and I said to my wife that I am not going to Rekohu. Then Maui rings that same morning and he said,“You got to come to Napier.” And I said, “no.”
He said,"it is hard to explain, but come to Napier as soon as you can.” So I went the next day and we were sitting at the table and I told him about the dream and he said he said he had a dream that I was wandering around with my guts spilling out. At that time Maui was having Maori language lessons from a guy named Mana Kracknell. He said he talked to Mana about the dream he had had.
Mana said, “Look man you are a carver in Maori tradition and you are working on a graveyard and to do that you must go through certain rituals that is why the whole thing is going wrong.” So he took us to the sea and we were blessed and had some karakia, and some Kuia prayed and that was the end of the problems. I mean we still had problems like other people but not the big ones.
Out on Rekohu I had two bodyguards, two Horomona/Rehe family members for 24 hours a day to protect me against the spirits. Sometimes we had to go back to the marae to get a few things in the Landrover and I was never allowed to go on my own. I slept on the marae with all the people around.
Sarah. It is interesting that the Moriori were a peace loving people and yet you needed to be protected from the spirits?
Marinus. You know, I was sitting beside Whetu Sullivan, Minister of Tourism (female) and she said,“You know the story goes that the spirits of the Moriori and the Maori are fighting in the afterlife because of the whole thing and that is why you need to be protected.” Every morning when we went to the statue site we stopped by the seaside and then take shoes and socks off, everything out of your pockets and we went into the water and washed water over our head and had a karakia and we did it every night before we went back to the marae.
Sarah. Did you do it for the unveiling too?
Marinus. Maui and I did.
Sarah. David Lange (NZPM) attended that unveiling, how did that go?
Marinus. I don’t know if you know but that was the biggest gathering of Maori leaders in the history of NZ. Peter Tapsell was there, Koro Wetere, Ann Herkus.
Sarah. Did you give your speech at the unveiling?
Marinus. Yes.
Sarah. What did you say?
Marinus. Welcomed everyone and then talked about a bit of stuff. I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, greatness is not a product of the brain, it can only be achieved with the soul and the spirit and then I said, the greatness of a soul or a spirit never dies, it is immortal. And to the spirits of the Moriori, “Let this place be a place that people from all nations can bury their arms and meet each other in peace, let this place be a spring of wisdom, from which all can refresh our soul and find peace in our hearts.”
Sarah. Have you been back?
Marinus. Twice, last time in 1994/5.
Sarah. How is the statue holding up under the extreme weather conditions?
Marinus. It has a crack in one of the legs and because of reinforcing, sea water damages it. In a few years it will be 20 years old, done in end of 1986.
Sarah. Will you do anything like this again?
Marinus. No. One of the most difficult things about being involved in something like this is letting it go. It is a tremendous intense involvement. Every morning you wake up and you go there and you don’t even have a day off.
Sarah. Did the spiritual experience and physical change you?
Marinus. No, not really. What was really in my mind was here I am from the other side of the world doing something of highly spiritual significance for a totally different people, and yet I have been able to do it. It was a good experience to know that the human experience is pretty much the same all over the place. Then of course I thought it was really neat for my kids and my grandkids.
Sarah. It has provided something for even my two youngest to see of a part of their culture from their great grandmother.
Marinus. You can tell them it was made by a bloody Dutch man…(laughs)
Sarah. But its like it has given you something that will be there for a very long time for you and for your family.
Marinus. The whole experience was that it was a sense of interaction and it was not an option, we were chosen to do it, there was no escaping that. They didn’t look for a Moriori or a Maori, they chose a Dutchman with no formal art education. If you look at that inside the racial issues inside this country, like the Moriori saying, “Hey we picked a Dutchman, so best you all get used to living with each other.” They called me ‘the artist,’ and I said forget it, I am just a statue builder. I never fit the artist mould, I was never that way inclined, it never fitted me. I mean even the great artists you see they made maybe one or two really great things which was a breakthrough and then for the rest they just keep painting.
Sarah. Reminds me of Mozart.
Marinus. Yeah, but then, I do not claim that statue for myself, there was so much more than me making a statue, it was more than that, I am not an artist, yet I am happy with the finished product. The only thing I wish was that I hadn’t used reinforcing steel, you know, but that can be easily fixed.
Sarah. Do you go to Rekohu to do maintenance on the statue?
Marinus. Yes the rats got in and ate the silicone moulding, so I fixed it and turned out a complete disaster, a $4000 exercise completely wasted. I kept one mould of his head and I had it sitting in my living room but every time we were in there it felt like Tame was there. So in the end we took it to Rekohu and buried it in the grave of Tame. There was a whole burial service and everything. But yes, I am a sculptor and yet I am not an artist, I am just a Dutchman who made a little bus.
