20: Just a wild theory

I have a wild suggestion. Below is a photo of a man from Rapanui (Easter Island) who lived from 1825-1909. His name was Pakomio Maori.

As the surgeon of the USS Mohican, George H. Cooke (1899:713,719), put it. Pakomio had blue eyes, red hair, a light skin and was remarkably European looking.

Pakomio Maori, who returned to Easter Island, in 1886 he was the last survivor of the Peruvian Slave Trade. Before the Puruvians, the Europeans had also taken some of Rapanui’s population away to work as forced labour. The total of all sources was 34% of their population. When the Bishop of Tahiti made Peru embarrassed of their acts, they sent them home, but most died enroute and when they arrived there they inadvertently spread smallpox. This all but ended the population as most were men.

Pakomio had red hair and white skin, some say from a European sexual union. Well the Pacific must have been full of red headed sailors in the 1700-1800’s by that reckoning and all the reports of redheaded Maori, Rapanuians and other island races. And these red headed sailors must have been very active sexually in that case. Talk about spreading your wild oats!

His name, Pakomio Maori, is unusual. But why was he called Maori? Was it a common name in Easter Island like Smith is in England? If in fact it was a name used on Rapanui in the old days, no one can say yes or no, because we just cannot prove it either way. If so, when those few from Easter Island reached New Zealand, did they call themselves Maori in recognition of their leader in the same way English names developed? Could it be possible that the ‘Maori’ race began and those that came from Polynesia and Melanesia absorbed the name in the same way a Canadian might live here and called themselves a Kiwi, or at least their children? Maybe they called him 'Maori' because a lot of Maori they had seen in NZ were red-headed with blue eyes and looked just like him in facial features? If so this would suggest people from Rapanui reached NZ...or maybe the other way around? Who knows. But has anyone else got a theory as the where the name Maori actually came from?