A Moriori tale: Ko Tahopuni rauu Ko Paonga

Abstract

The Moriori language has no native speakers, so any historical data from the language is invaluable. This paper presents an unpublished Moriori manuscript, with a new morpheme-for-morpheme gloss. The manuscript, Ko Tahopuni rauu Ko Paonga, is an eight-page handwritten document detailing the story of Tahopuni and his son Paonga, who invade the land of the monster Tchurawhateitei and eventually kill her. The manuscript was seemingly intended for the Journal of the Polynesian Society, where Shand’s other narratives were published (1894–1898), but it was not included among those. Unlike the original, this paper unites the Moriori and English translations so that it may be read line for line. This paper therefore presents historical Moriori language data in a modern arrangement.