(The essay below serves as a follow-up or companion piece to “The Alienork Way”. I spelled Ork intentionally to generalize upon the theme of barbarian invaders, and not only Tolkien’s Orcs.)
Hundreds of years ago the Moriori, of the Chatham Islands, took a solemn vow of peace known as Nunuku’s Law. The decision to uphold this sacred law in the face of aggression in 1835 had tragic consequences. They were slaughtered, enslaved, and dispossessed of their lands. The Moriori lived on Chatham Island and Pitt Island, two islands in the Chatham Islands group, about 700 kilometers south-east of Wellington.
Nunuku’s Law: Isolated from mainland New Zealand, the Moriori developed a unique culture based on a law of peace. This was called Nunuku’s Law, after the ancestor Nunuku-whenua. After seeing bloody conflict between the Hamata people and later arrivals, he banned murder and the eating of human flesh forever. After 1791, when the British ship Chatham called at Rēkohu, Moriori came into contact with Europeans and Māori who came as crew on sealing and whaling vessels. Some settled on the islands and lived alongside the Moriori. This relative peace was shattered in 1835 when Maoris from two tribes, both from Taranaki, arrived in the Chatham Islands in search of new territories and resources.
In 1835, 24 generations after the Moriori chief Nunuku had forbidden war, the Moriori welcomed about 900 people from the two Māori tribes. Originally from Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island, they had voyaged from Wellington on an overcrowded European vessel, the Rodney. They arrived severely weakened, but were nursed back to health by their Moriori hosts. However, they soon revealed hostile intentions and embarked on a reign of terror.
