I’m not an anthropologist, but I became interested in Moriori culture and history after I took a part-time job on an Info Desk in Auckland Museum and found myself bombarded with dodgily-premised questions about the tchakat henu of Rekohu. That old myth of a pre-Maori people dies hard, especially when it’s supplemented by New Age fairytales like the Nation of Waitaha and the Chinese discovery of Aotearoa. I’ve blogged about the apparent indefatigability of the myth here:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2008/01/good-bookshop-lousy-book.html
As you can see, quite a few of the mythmakers popped up in the comments thread under the blog!

The question about which part of Aotearoa the Moriori came from is very interesting. There doesn’t seem to be a certain answer, but analysis of the Moriori language by Rhys Richards and others reveals an affinity with the Ngai Tahu dialect. The only Maori dialect with more words in common with Moriori is Taranaki, and of course it was two Taranaki iwi which colonised Rekohu after 1835. It’s natural, then, that Moriori vocabularies recorded decades after 1835 should show the influence of Taranaki Maori. The similarity with Ngai Tahu, though, is harder to explain away.

There are also marked similarities between the material culture of Murihiku and Rekohu. A number of scholars have made a connection between the mysterious flowing lines of the limestone paintings of Murihiku and the Moriori dendroglyphs. (When visitors to the museum complain because we don’t have any Moriori dendroglyphs on display, I take them to see some of the rock paintings mounted in the Maori Court, and suggest a similarity. That seems to calm them down…)

Since I reviewed Richards’ book reports of a new threat to the Manu Moriori have appeared in the media. It seems that a plague of beetles may be damaging the kopi trees of the Chathams, and the carvings those trees preserve:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=525&objectid=10508820

It may be, then, that the conclusion of my review was too optimistic. Perhaps the unique achievements of the Manu will have to be preserved and perpetuated in other settings, as modern-day artists draw inspiration from them. It’s notable that the Moriori marae which was opened on Rekohu a couple of years ago includes a work of carving which uses some of the forms of the dendroglyphs.

Cheers
Scott