In this edited excerpt from Pātaka Kai: Kai Sovereignty, Māui Solomon (Moriori, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) – an internationally acclaimed Indigenous rights activist and barrister – and his wife Susan Thorpe (Pākehā) share what they are doing to revive ta rē Moriori on Rēkohu.

Rēkohu and Rangihaute are the Indigenous names for the two largest islands in the Chatham archipelago, which is situated 800km east of Te Waipounamu and Te Ika-a-Māui. It is the homeland of Moriori, a people whose history of inhabitation stretches back some thousand years before the arrival of outsiders in 1791. There have been many misconceptions about Moriori, who have often been described as an extinct and landless culture, but over the past 40 or so years a cultural revival has helped lay those myths to rest. 

In February 2020, after a struggle for truth and justice that began in 1835, Māui Solomon (Moriori, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) and his people signed a historic Deed of Settlement with the New Zealand Crown. The deed included an official Crown apology for breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an agreed account of the history of Rēkohu that honours Moriori as the waina pono or the Indigenous peoples of Rēkohu, and $18 million in redress for the Crown’s failure to protect Moriori in the wake of the devastating occupation of Rēkohu by Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from 1835 and subsequent confiscation of 98% of their land by the Native Land Court. 

“In terms of our Treaty settlement, we are still thinking that through,” says Solomon. “It was an $18 million financial settlement, which is really just a drop in the bucket. We still have to go on a consultation hui with our people to decide how best to utilise that resource. Prior to that, over the last 20 or 30 years Moriori have, under our own steam, built up an asset base: we’ve built a marae, we’ve bought back land, a tourist lodge, we’ve got into fishing, farming, tourism, cultural experiences and things like conservation.

“So we haven’t simply sat back and waited for the Treaty settlement to happen, and that has been really important.”

The impact of the settlement process has yet to be fully realised, however. Solomon’s aspirations for his people are broad: “What I often say to people is that yes, through the purchase of assets and the settlement we now have the hardware, so to speak, we’ve got the resources and those sorts of things, but the hardware doesn’t work without the software. What’s most important is . . . reviving our ta rē Moriori, our knowledge of our rongo, our songs, our karakii, our prayers, so that our people can understand our pūrākau, our history, and can stand proud around Ka Pou o Rangitokona, the central post in Kōpinga Marae, and recite their hokopapa and sing their stories and be proud of who they are. And do so in their own language.”

Solomon’s wife, Susan Thorpe, reminds us that the distinctive historical and environmental context of Rēkohu needs to be honoured: “We are frequently having to say to New Zealand government departments or funding agents, ‘Please don’t treat us like the rest of New Zealand, it is not going to work.’ Our ecology and our food systems function really differently. Understanding that is the essence of tchiekitanga [kaitiakitanga], tchieki is the tukupa Moriori. Bringing back that kind of knowledge is vital for islanders, as is having this knowledge respected in a way that supports our efforts to look after the ecology of the islands. That is really important.”

A few years ago New Zealand-based scientists visited the islands and were puzzled by the size of plants and fish and the behaviour of birds on Rēkohu. Thorpe remembered that one of the things people kept saying as they walked around the island was, “Oh, that’s odd, why is it doing that?” in response to the freshwater fish to the macro-vertebrates, the plants and everything. The scientists were scratching their heads going, “That shouldn’t be doing that, this is amazing.”

“It’s not just that things are bigger down here,” says Thorpe. “They behave differently as well . . . A lot of our manu don’t bother to fly: there is no point, their kai is all on the ground. They would have done that in New Zealand as well, the parea [wood pigeons] and so on. They look like sheep — funny, feathered sheep.”

The distinctive Rēkohu culture is also captured in the creation story of Moriori, which includes the same primordial parents as those of Māori (Rangi and Pāpātuanuk’) but a different etchu (atua) who separates them. This is Rangitokona, the propper-up of the heavens, who placed 10 pillars, one under the other, to create the space through which light and knowledge could enter.

Thorpe tells the story: “In the Moriori creation story there is no kōrero about Tāne-mahuta. Pāpā and Rangi were separated by Rangitokona, who put pillars against Rangi . . . until he reached Pāpātuanuk’, gently prising them apart. Then Rangitokona brought his wife Te Ao Marama beside him, and as a partnership they created a space for humans. He did that by taking a part of Pāpātuanuk’. He formed the clay from Pāpātuanuk’ not into a person but into a tree. Then took the spirit of the bird and blew it into the tree, reminding us that we are born from the trees and the birds. And that is what I want every child on this island to understand — how junior we are to nature. It is time for us to ask the trees and the birds what they want from us, not what we want from them.” 

Trees are particularly significant to Rēkohu and Rangihaute. Kōpi (karaka) groves feature throughout the archipelago and were brought to the islands in the second Moriori migration wave aboard the waka Rangimata and Rangihoua. It is little wonder that kōpi trees play a significant part in Moriori customs and practices then — as the islands were too cold to grow kūmara, and kōpi provided a valuable source of carbohydrate for the population.

“The kōpi nut was processed, just as the karaka was in New Zealand,” says Thorpe. “It must have been on a massive industrial scale because the kōpi were in their tens of thousands in groves around the islands. What we have now is a sort of denuded island landscape where you’ll find little groves of kōpi trees. Historically it was a densely forested landscape into which Moriori cut clearings and placed their kōpi trees as orchards. They were the agroforesters of this island group — sophisticated orchardists. 

“We’ve got substantial archaeological information to support that. It is no surprise to me that they went on to engrave beautiful portraits all over their trees. Those trees saved their lives for sure. In a climate where you rely on marine protein — seals and kaimoana as well as seaweed and then kai hinu with the birds, particularly the seasonal seabird take — you have to have some carbohydrate to complement that diet.”

Given the practical role kōpi played in providing sustenance and resilience for Moriori, the practice of rākau momori (engravings in living tree bark) provides a window into the spiritual world of Moriori peoples as shaped by the environmental and ecological conditions of this particular archipelago. The engraved trees have the same significance as burial areas, and some feature the spirits of departed ancestors. The act of carving a living tree would infuse the spirit of the departed into the tree, which then continued to grow. 

Rēkohu foodscapes then and now 

When voyagers first explored and settled this area they brought not only the kōpi but also other plants, including the dune plant marautara and arapuhi. The latter was said to have 12 branches and was used as a metaphorical image for the Moriori calendar, which has 12 months and 12 years. The seasons are named according to the branches. Arapuhi is no longer found on the islands, most likely due to the introduction of various animals.

“In the late 1820s sealing gangs arrived on the outer reefs,” explains Thorpe. “They didn’t have much interaction with Moriori but of course, being sealers, they did leave food and animals on some of those reefs in order for subsequent gangs to have a kai. They brought in potatoes, and of course they brought in rats and, later on, pigs. So the island was colonised with pigs and potatoes prior to Māori arrival in 1835. Once you start growing spuds, you start removing some of the native vegetation and so on. Potatoes grow really well here. When Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga arrived, they cleared more of the forest and grew commercial quantities of potatoes for trade to Australia — about 2,000 tonnes a year left the islands up until 1858. 

“The food systems that we have here on the island now are dramatically different. We have been utterly colonised by freight dependency. Now we have a situation where islanders are importing sacks of potatoes.

“Every year it is our mission to give away as many seed potatoes as possible to try to get our island community back in the practice of growing some of their own kai. A lot of kai that could easily be grown locally, and has been in the past, is imported. Because we have a ship every month or so, and a plane nearly every day, people are now bringing in supermarket orders, and online shopping services are coming to the island.”

In a bid to rid the islands of predators, the Chatham Islands Landscape Trust plans to start predator-free trials: “Our main predators are feral cats, possums and rats,” Thorpe says. ‘There are others, but we don’t have rabbits, we don’t have mustelids, so that is good. On Rangihaute Pitt Island there are no rats or possums, just feral cats. If we got rid of the cats alone, it is estimated we would have five million nesting tītī back here within five years, so that is kai.”

Awakening the knowledge 

Solomon and Thorpe have dedicated much of their time to enhancing biodiversity and awakening traditional practices. One example of these practices is the large gardens they cultivate so that they can share both kai and seeds. Kamokamo grow prolifically on Rēkohu, and sharing this abundance provides opportunities to remind community members of food preservation practices.

The island is also a perfect site for permaculture and regenerative practices: “On the island we’ve got . . . peat-based soil, seaweed off the beach; all sorts of natural resources are available to us. Out in the paddocks we have sheep and cow manure, heaps of green waste and things like that, and it’s right at our back door. So we decided to set up our own little permaculture garden. We have been doing that more or less in a casual, ad hoc fashion . . . and every year, for example, we’ve got about eight or nine different varieties of potatoes growing.” 

Finding a balance between drawing sustenance from the land at the same time as nurturing the henu (whenua) is an important focus: “It is about creating that balance between being able to drive an economic income but doing it in a way that’s ecologically sound: thinking about the needs of Pāpātuanuk’ and the other species that we share this precious henu with, and not just taking for ourselves as humans and giving nothing back,” says Solomon. “That’s kind of the paradigm that Susan and I are most interested in: How can we live sustainably on the henu, and how can we give back to it, to help sustain it for those generations that will follow after us? This includes the replanting of food forests for harvest of fruits and nuts.” 

Kai is the vehicle to get the community inspired about seed-saving for both food and weaving. The kāretu, a fragrant tropical grass, can no longer be found on the two main islands, and moves are afoot to return it to Rēkohu. 

Another project to awaken earlier practices is the development of a propagation calendar, based on the Moriori calendar, to guide seed and fruit collection for propagating native plants. Solomon and Thorpe are involved in tree-planting projects and have already planted 98,000 natives on family land; they plan to plant over 150,000 natives in total on Manukau and allow self-regeneration of another 50 to 100 hectares.

“I’ve just started taking on the lease of our hunau [whānau] land, our family land down here at Manukau, and we are transitioning that into regeneratively farmed land,” Solomon explains. “The results in a short space of time are already quite amazing, which is testament to the self-healing properties of Pāpātuanuk’ if she is given a chance. Regenerative farming focuses on building good soil, plant, animal and community health, so looking at giving more back to the land than taking from it. We’ve fenced off 150 hectares of waterways around the coast and in the back gullies, and we will probably end up fencing off 270 hectares and restoring that, putting the cloak back onto the henu and bringing the manu back into the landscape. 

Manukau literally means place of many birds, but it was cleared for farming over 100 years ago and hardly any trees were left. We’re going to gradually restore the korowai back to the henu, and also the manu.”

Māramatanga and manawa reka 

The focus that Solomon and Thorpe bring to bear on the plants, animals and insects that inhabit Rēkohu is dedicated to the kaupapa of sharing, and they and others are learning by doing. Their activities bring them into a state of māramatanga that ensures a closer connection to the environmental, ecological and cultural conditions that surround them.

“Our kaupapa is based on the Moriori concept of sharing . . . ,” says Thorpe. “We found too that by talking to others who are interested, you suddenly become more observant about what is happening. For five years in a row we had a summer drought followed by a rainy summer. People started to notice changes in what seed was coming through on the trees. Then you notice things happening with the manu. 

“Once you start looking at trends in seasonal change, then you start making plans not just for the season ahead but the years ahead, and that is really important. We have to be like the little rats that can see into the future and tell if we are going to have a good winter. Are we going to have enough kai? Have we put enough aside? Or are our birds going to have enough kai?”

Returning to the distinctive features of Moriori language and culture, which are similar yet different to those of te ao Māori, Thorpe notes: “Moriori do not have a word for manaaki, there is no mana aki here. When you think about it, that makes sense. If you know everybody, you don’t have to worry too much about how your mana looks. What you have is your manawa reka, and that is the sweetness and the compassion that you bring, and what better way to show that than through the sharing of kai . . . 

When you are isolated by 800km of southern ocean, it becomes quite literally your way of surviving. The allocation and the apportioning and sharing of kai was done not through any kind of chiefly status, it was done through a much more egalitarian system to make sure everybody had something, and that would be wonderful to go back to.”

Pātaka Kai: Kai Sovereignty by Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith, with Johnson Witehira and Yvonne Taura ($45, Massey University Press) is available to purchase from Unity Books.