Moriori Survivors

From Moriori: A People Rediscovered, by Michael King (Penguin, 2017), Kindle Loc. 1196ff.: At least Moriori who were killed fell into merciful oblivion. Those who survived the first killings were separated, moved around, and forced into slavery of the most onerous kind. As the 1862 Moriori plea to George Grey records, ‘men were separated from the women, parents from children, older children from younger children, and the strings of their heart quivered’. They also faced continuous near-starvation, frequent beatings, sexual abuse by their captors if the slaves were young women, a prohibition on marriage or sexual contact with their own people, permanent removal from the territories where their tribes had lived for centuries, and enforced breaking of the ancient tapus that had formerly protected them. They faced a life in which those they had loved were not only absent, but whose remains could still be seen intermittently, defiled by Maori and dogs alike. Perhaps worst of all, they…

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