Category Archives: Moriori

by | August 27, 2016 · 12:27 PM

Repost: The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism

Repost from the old site. This is a popular post for some time on this site. I like this post a lot, as it shows the sheer folly and suicidal insanity of a philosophy of pure pacifism. At some point, you either wait for the enemy to come out and murder you, or you pick up a weapon so you can at least take some of them out in the process. It’s better than being murdered with your hands in the air. At least fighting back offers a dignified death.

The saga of Moriori is instructive.

The Maori have long been known as ferocious headhunters and cannibals who had one of the cruelest and evillest cultures on Earth. The Moriori seem to be a Maori split dating back to about 1500 or so when they left New Zealand and colonized the Chatham Islands. The Chatham Islands are small, very cold and isolated, and there is not a lot of food other than from the sea.

Moriori legend has it that initially, widespread tribal warfare, headhunting and cannibalism was practiced as the normative cruel Moriori culture. On such a small island, this savagery was disastrous, and soon the population plummeted to near-extinction. A leader arose among the Moriori, Nunuku-whenua, who preached a new doctrine of extreme pacifism, Nunuku’s Law. Nunuku’s Law was strictly adhered to 300 years.

Fighting was allowed between males, but it had to be conducted with each armed with a stick the width of a finger. At the first sign of blood, the duel was called off, and the dispute was considered settled. Homicide, rape and other crimes were reportedly rare to absent among the Moriori for centuries.

In 1835, the Chatham Islands were invaded by Maori warriors, who promptly proceeded to slaughter, cannibalize and enslave the Moriori. When the fighting began, the Moriori gathered for a meeting to decide whether or not to fight the invaders. Many young men argued for fighting back, but the elders decided that Nunuku’s Law could not be violated for any reason. The Moriori ran away and hid and were found and dealt with by the Maori.

From 1835-1862, the population declined from 1,600 to 100. Those not murdered and eaten were enslaved. Moriori slaves were forbidden to marry each other, and Moriori women were forced to marry Maori men. It was a true genocide.  Tommy Solomon, the last pure Moriori, died in 1933.

Tommy Solomon on his yearly visit to Christchurch. He was definitely a big fellow! He married a Maori woman, so his descendants are technically not pure Moriori.

 

Although popular myth says the Moriori were exterminated by the Maori, several thousand mixed-race Moriori still exist today. The Moriori language is extinct, but efforts are being made to raise it from the dead.

Rightwingers have used this episode to exemplify the folly of pacifism.

The saga of the Moriori gives the lie to the notion that race is destiny, at least among Polynesians.

It is commonly thought that Polynesians selected for extreme aggression on their long sea voyages to colonize distant islands. Food may have run low on these voyages, and the survivors may have killed others and cannibalized them to survive. Perhaps the biggest and strongest were the ones most likely to survive the voyages, and this explains the huge size of Polynesians, probably the largest race on Earth, and possibly their high levels aggression and outrageous cruelty.

In modern Westernized societies, Polynesians characteristically become an Underclass with high crime, violence, gang membership and general pathology. In traditional societies, they often do well.

Whatever Polynesian genes look like, the saga of the Moriori shows that they are not doomed to high crime rates or Underclass pathology.

Genetics is the clay, culture is the sculptor.

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Filed under Anthropology, Cultural, Maori, Moriori, Oceanians, Pacific, Philosophy, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional

by | May 31, 2016 · 4:34 PM

Culture Is Far More Powerful Than You Think

Jim writes: The problem with cultural explanations is that the behavioral genetic studies on identical twins show very minor effect of “shared environment”. Culture would presumably fall within shared environment. Most human behavior is mostly due to a combination of genetic factors and something not very well understood today called “non-shared environment”.

Surely culture is held constant in almost all of these identical twin studies because all of the twins are growing up in the same culture.

Also what may not matter a lot as a whole is individual shared environments among the same culture. But culture is different from individual micro-environments within a society. Culture is indeed or has the potential to be a super-environment. Culture is “the great molder.” Culture itself is a “super-environment.”

How then does one explain the absolutely incredible changes in Blacks from Africa to the US over centuries? It is almost like we are talking about different species or the transformation of nonhuman animals into humans. The change was that dramatic.

Human behavior does indeed differ dramatically around the world as culture changes, does it not?

Are you familiar with the stories of the Moiriori versus the Maori? No doubt genetically they were quite similar, or if anything, the Maoris, who acted much worse, may have even been more advanced genetically.

Furthermore the Moiriori had behaved in a typical Maori fashion for centuries after coming to Chatham Island, until at some point, they realized that if they kept being so savage, they were going to all kill each other and go extinct. At this point, a charismatic leader rose up against them and preached radical nonviolence as the only salvation of the Moiriori. This caught on and soon enough the Moiriori were some of the peaceful people on Earth who were such pacifists that they would hardly even fight back if attacked. They stayed like this for a few hundred years until the Maori invasion and their subsequent extermination.

How could the Maori and the Moiriori have been so different, especially as the Moiriori had been Maori when they colonized the island? How could the Moiriori themselves have made such dramatic changes from as savage as you can get to as peaceful as you can get?

Culture. Culture culture culture culture culture. In the first case, two different cultures and in the second case, culture change among a group.

How did the Germans and Japanese change from the most vicious and savage people on Earth to some of the most peaceful on Earth, in both cases so pacifistic that it is almost pathological?

Culture. Culture culture culture culture. In both cases, there were dramatic changes from the most savage people around to some of the most peaceful people around very rapidly, within a matter of decades. This was a case of rapid culture change among a group.

In Venezuela, there is a tribe called the Yanonamo who are some of the vicious people on Earth. They live in a state of constant violence. They are always at war with surrounding tribes, and in addition, there are high levels of violence even among their own community. They beat their wives, and both sexes beat the children. There is also a lot of feuding-type violence among the men. By age 40, 100% of Yanonamo men have committed a homicide. 

Not extremely far away, also in the Venezuelan Amazon rainforest, is a tribe that is fascinating for being one of the most pacifistic peoples on Earth. Their behavior is so different that they draw anthropologists from all over to study them. They may be called the Pemon, but I am not sure. I very much doubt if their genes are much different than the Yanonamo.

What’s the difference?

Culture. Two different cultures.

 

 

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Filed under Amerindians, Anthropology, Cultural, Culture, Maori, Moriori, Oceanians, Pacific, Polynesia, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, South America, Venezuela

by | November 15, 2009 · 9:12 AM

Islam As A “Super Culture”

In the post Race, Crime, Genes, Culture, Capitalism, Urbanization: Some Puzzles (How is that for a title?), I discussed the possibilities that “super-cultures” may exist that exert incredible influence on the genes of the persons living in those cultures. Super-cultures have “gene-warping effects, such that gene expression is warped in a profound way, often for the better.

The example of the Moriori was given, at first one of the most ferociously evil people on Earth, transformed via a Superculture into one of the most pacifistic people on Earth, so pacifist, that they got almost completely genocided due to their inability to fight back when faced with the true Maori who attacked them in the 1800’s.

I also suggested that Islam is a Superculture. Blacks living under Islam have a fairly low crime rate rate, including a violent crime rate, and they have a relatively low level of the social pathologies that we have come to associate with Blacks all over the world. Something about Islam is so gene-warping that it is modifying typical gene expression in Blacks.

A commenter, who opposes Islam, comments below. I agree with his comments in many ways. Let us say that I do not think that the West is compatible with Islam. We can handle a few of them, but once we get over a certain tipping point it is not going to be a tea party anymore. Here in the secular, let it all hang out West, Islam is pretty much the opposite of what we want in a society.

On the other hand, I believe in people’s rights to live how they choose, and if Muslim countries wish to live under Islam, so be it. This goes along with the principle of self-determination that we advocate here on this blog. Muslims can be Muslims all they want to in Muslim countries.

Nevertheless, Muslims do not seem to do so well as minorities in non-Muslim nations. There is a sense that Muslims are not required to live under infidel rule, and in fact, they seem to bristle at the very notion. Never mind that there are correlates in Islamic Law that state that Muslims in infidel countries must follow infidel law, else just go home. This is a more liberal reading of Islamic Law. It is rather disturbing that once they get to around 3-4% or so, Muslims start demanding Islamic Law for their civil and marriage law courts.

And once you get a large Muslim minority, you usually have some sort of an insurgency, often a separatist one, on your hands. Philippines, Thailand, India, China, Russia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria, and Israel are good examples. While some of these are justified, the take home point, if you are a non-Muslim country, seems to be to not allow large Muslim minorities to even get started in the first place.

That word super culture. I don’t think it should be used to describe Islam…I don’t even think Islam is a culture. In fact, Islam is anti culture. Think about it. All the demands Muslims make around the world in non-Muslim countries they live in…which actually have culture…are subtractive.

They are against dance, music, mixing of genders, fashion, women, gays, sex, alcohol, etc…they offer no replacement for the things they want to subtract…except prayer and boring lifeless existence. They are anti-culture…and culture can not survive Islam…at least not without going underground.

I don’t think Islam is a religion either…not as much as it is a regimented way of life and control…those are its key elements…with fear of violent punishments for the slightest dissent…that’s why in Black Islamic communities, Blacks cannot be violent and criminal…because the consequences are basically…death.

Yes it’s a gene warping thing…un-natural selection…sticking to the system without deviating one inch…ensures survival and breeding…making each next generation more genetically fanatically religious. Gradually the power of rational thinking and logic and ability to question dogma is bred out altogether.

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Filed under Africa, Anthropology, Asia, Blacks, China, Cultural, East Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eurasia, Genetics, India, Indonesia, Islam, Israel, Maori, Middle East, Moriori, Nigeria, North Africa, Philippines, Polynesians, Race/Ethnicity, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, Russia, SE Asia, South Asia, Thailand, West Africa, West Turkestan

by | July 7, 2009 · 12:24 AM

Race, Crime, Genes, Culture, Capitalism, Urbanization: Some Puzzles

A commenter notes that genes provide a range of behaviors, and culture may not be able to move group performance much outside of that range. The suggestion by that commenter was that genes will predispose some populations to relatively high crime, and culture can only make it lower or higher, but it’s never going to be all that low.

Allow me to differ on that for a moment.

Check out my post on the Moriori.

In a nutshell, the Polynesians are widely regarded as extremely violent people. They were violent as Hell on contact, and their oral histories indicated a culture of extreme violence dating back as far as we can tell. They seem to have been some of the most violent folks on Earth.

The Maori were some of the most violent of all of the Polynesians. To this day, they have very high rates of general instability, drug abuse, domestic violence, and all sorts of crime, including violent crime. They are are regarded as having hair trigger tempers and for being highly aggressive. They have all of the social pathologies of US Blacks, though their IQ’s seem to be higher. (IQ = 91).

The Moriori were a Maori subgroup that colonized the Chatham Islands in the 1600’s. They started out being typically maniacal Maoris, but after a while of that, it become clear that they were going to massacre each other.

A leader came unto them and saw God. He became a religious leader, and all of the people followed him. He ordered them to renounce all violence. For the next 300 years, they were possibly one of the least violent people on Earth. Homicide was basically unheard of, and so was rape. Conflict was settled by a twig as wide as your index finger. At the first blood it was over and done with, and the conflict was buried.

Around the 1830’s, the Maori came to the Chatham Islands. They attacked the Moriori and the Moriori were so pacifist they would not even fight back. They were quickly massacred, enslaved and cannibalized. Few survived.

Now, how does the most violent tribe on Earth become the most pacifist tribe on Earth?

It’s clear to me that Polynesians are genetically primed for violence and aggression, but it’s also clear that a strong culture can completely overcome that.

Genes provide the clay, culture is the sculptor.

Now, the question is, how can these profound gene-warping cultures work? Sadly, I think they work best in small tribes and villages. In large cities and big societies, I don’t think these super-cultures can take hold. They just get washed out by the genes. So in large cities and with huge populations, genes will predominate, and maybe culture has limited effects. In very small populations, culture can be a super-warper.

There is also the possibility that some races are more “plastic” than other races. Polynesians may be a “plastic race” that is highly susceptible to cultural effects. Amerindians may be another one. There are Amazonian tribes right near the “most violent people on Earth”, the Yanomamo, that, like the Moriori, are some of the pacifist people on Earth.

A problem with Blacks is that they seem to commit lots of crime just about everywhere. I am willing to entertain the possibility that Blacks may not be as “plastic” or as effected by super-culture, as, say, Polynesians and Amerindians are.

The Dyula are an exception, and they are Blacker than people say they are. They are also subject to the profound gene-warping effects of a super-culture called Islam. In North Africa and the Arab World, Blacks and part-Blacks often have crime rates that are quite low, live in orderly and stable societies, are often employed, have fairly stable families, etc. I conclude that Islam is good for Blacks. The Dyula homicide rate is about the same as Japan’s. American Blacks have a homicide rate about 28 times higher than the Dyula.

In socialist societies, Blacks have low crime rates. Cuba is 37% Black, and Havana is probably the safest city in Latin America in terms of violent crime, but there is a lot of petty theft nowadays.

In Mozambique under Samora Machel’s Communist regime, anyone, male or female, could walk at 3 AM from one end of the 95% Black capital Maputo to the other with no problems.

Dominica, with an 89% Black population (the rest mixed race Black-White) has a homicide rate 68% that of the US, which has a 13% Black population. American Blacks have a homicide rate about 8 times higher than Dominican Blacks.

I conclude that socialism and relatively equitable societies are good for Blacks, and highly unequal societies seem to spur huge amounts of Black crime.

The reasons will be painful for Blacks but will make sense in a race realist sense. As we have noted on this blog, the US Black IQ is 89.8. That is 13.2 points lower than the US White IQ of 103. The Black IQ has skyrocketed by 22 points in 75 years, but it continue to lag behind the White IQ.

This blog takes no position on what is causing the deficit (Whether it is culture or genes or both, that is, but I will say that I do not think the gap is caused by racism.), and perhaps in the future, Blacks will close the gap partly or fully. But presently, the gap exists and is real; that’s all we need to know.

Blacks may also as a group have higher rates of genetic variables that make it more difficult to succeed in an advanced capitalist society.

Such a society rewards “nerdiness”, showing up on time, delaying gratification (often massive delay of gratification), ability to control one’s emotions in heated office environments, long attention span, etc. There seems to be evidence that Blacks on average have a more extroverted personality that finds these introverted type traits to be frustrating at best and idiotic at worst.

With an IQ deficit like that, Blacks will tend to lag behind no matter what.

Extremely competitive US capitalist culture (much more competitive than, say, European culture) continually blasts you with messages that you must be in at least the top 20% income bracket to be considered a “winner” in US society.

That means 80% of the population are “losers” at any given time. Many will be “losers” for life. US society foments extreme hatred and contempt for the 80% “losers” (particularly the males) and it reminds them of that every single day.

For people who already are handicapped in competition in such a society due to extroversion and lower IQ, who have a lesser ability to delay gratification, to have it hammered into their heads every day that they are failures and they need to be rich to be successful right now may be too much to bear.

If the standard way of getting rich doesn’t pan out, many will just say fuck it and turn to the easy cash of crime. This is my explanation for high Black crime rates in modern capitalist societies.

I suspect that this same dynamic may also effect other groups whose IQ’s, though not especially low, still put them at disadvantage against the higher groups.

Polynesians (IQ = 89), Amerindians (IQ = 90), Hispanics (IQ = 92, Arabs in Europe (IQ = 92), Inuit (IQ = 94) may be some examples. None of these IQ’s is especially low in global terms and neither is US Black IQ (IQ = 89.8).

The average human on Earth has an IQ of 89. I think it’s ridiculous to say that the average human is a moron, so I won’t say that. All of these groups, including US Blacks, have IQ’s near the global average. Melanesians (IQ = 89) in urban New Guinea have a similar IQ and reportedly have horrific crime rates.

In Europe, we have the Roma (IQ = 84), who have outrageous crime and social pathology rates.

Obviously, very low IQ groups like the poor Aborigines (IQ = 65), Black Africans (IQ = 70) and Caribbean Blacks (IQ = 74) are often going to be completely creamed in many highly competitive modern urban societies.

Indeed, Aborigines have off the charts social pathologies and presently nearly need to be taken care of like children for their own good by a paternalistic state. A near-70 IQ worked fine in African villages, but many African urban areas are sheer disaster zones. Urban areas in the Caribbean have some of the world’s highest violent crime rates.

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