154: The fate of a people here before Polynesians

May 15, 2020

Ancients chants reveal that around 1250 A.D. a warrior priest named Pa’ao arrived in Hawaii from Tahiti. After some months of traveling through the Hawaiian islands, he returned to Tahiti with the thought that 'Hawaiians' were weak and without religious convictions. He soon returned bringing with him an invading army who conquered the islands and installed the kapu system of rule. Essentially, the Polynesians who sailed to Hawaii they brought their own form of colonization to an existing people already there.

The Kapu System Of Rule

Kapu refers to a system of taboos designed to separate the spiritually pure from the potentially unclean. This kapu system was brutal in its warlike rule, introducing gods in need of almost daily sacrifices. The Na Ali’i, or ruling class, who came to power were considered children of the gods. They required obedience in the form of protocols, restrictions, and rituals which could include human sacrifices. Punishments for breaking the kapu could include death, although if one could escape to a puʻuhonua, a city of refuge, one could be saved. The ruling class (ali’i) also seemed to have embraced the idea of Aloha and many legends speak of kind Ali’i who provided for and protected their people, becoming much loved.

Kapu restrictions included:

Restrictions on the planting, gathering and preparation of food
Restrictions on looking at, touching, or being in close proximity with chiefs and individuals of known spiritual power
Restrictions on over-fishing
During times of war, the first two men to be killed were offered to the gods as sacrifices.

Many kapu were associated with keeping women separate from men (a restriction known as ʻaikapu) such as:

The separation of men and women during mealtimes
The use of different ovens to cook the food of male and female
Different eating places for men and women
Women were forbidden to eat pig, coconut, banana, and certain red foods because of their male symbolism.
Women separated from the community during their menses

For unknown reasons migrations from the southern islands stopped around 1300 A.D. (only some 50 years after arriving). Some believe it may have been due to loss of islands along the route to Hawaii while others speculate there may have been a kapu put on traveling to Hawaii. Either way, the Hawaiian society, already there, continued to expand for the next 400+ years until being discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. By that time the total Hawaiian population was estimated to have been close to 1 million people.

So, did Polynesians come to NZ with the same intent as they did to Hawaii. After all Kapu and Tapu are exactly the same thing. The early arrivals here, who may have traveled back to Hawaiiki to tell of the land, would have seen a people without as strong a religious convictions as they and therefore were seen as being weak. Such a people would be killed, enslaved or 're-educated'.

Many legends talk of various types of races belonging here already in small numbers and different in appearance and custom; but co-habiting none-the-less. They would be easily overrun by a rapidly breeding Polynesian population who had the need to grow and develop in the ways they knew from Hawaiiki, ignoring the protocols and claims of those already here had, but adopting what they liked in tools, design and customs. We are sure the initial years were generally peaceful until their numbers grew and they could dominate in the same way they did in the 21700's with in themselves as new tribal groups. The intent of this article was to explore if those already here on Aotearoa was treated the same way as the Hawaiians by the Polynesians only 280 years later? Just asking the question, don't freak on me. Imagine a Melanesiod people, here for millennia, living simply, and watching with trepidation Polynesians arrive on huge waka with 45 people on board....

Someone wrote about their theory of the Menhune (the first ones) in Hawaii - "They probably welcomed the Polynesian settlers. The Menehune were a small group and they knew of all the Islands already and knew that there was plenty to go around. As more migration took place and the Polynesian civilization started to take hold and grow, I think the Menehune may have just decided to move. Either to get out of the way or they were just of the thinking “Ah well, we’ll just go over here”.They probably lost control of their civilization and the islands in a peaceful way. Choosing not to war or battle with the Polynesians. Heck, they may not have even realized it was happening."

Could the MoriOri who were here before the migrations, have migrated to the Chathams for the same reason?

Did they see those here before them be enslaved and therefore escaped to the Chathams to be free of what the later arrivals brought?