One man's journey to confirm his Moriori links is finally over

Steve Retimana has had his ancestry freed from a cloak of shame.

After decades of researching his links to the Moriori of the Chatham Islands, his family lineage was confirmed yesterday.

At the invitation of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust, which represents all people who can identify a Moriori ancestor who was alive in the Chathams in 1835, he and his daughter Karly Retimana-Te Whatu attended a meeting in Auckland where his ancestry was confirmed by experts on Moriori hokopapa (whakapapa).

"Today, it's taken me to somewhere I felt I should have been when I was a young man," said 58-year-old Mr Retimana, of Ruawai near the northern Kaipara Harbour.

His great-grandfather Matene Totara Te Retimana had been brought from the Chatham Islands to the North Island as a child, most likely as a slave of the Te Atiawa people.

An alliance of Wellington Maori tribes had invaded the Chathams in 1835, killing hundreds of Moriori and enslaving those they let live.

Mr Retimana, a sickness beneficiary and kidney patient who hopes to have a transplant, said his great-grandfather made his way to Northland and had a family.

As a child, Mr Retimana, who also has Ngati Whatua ancestry, began wondering whether his great-grandfather was Moriori. "A lot of people were thinking about it at that time, because they weren't sure about our line, not even my Dad.

"There's a lot of secrecy surrounding my grandfather [and] our whanau in the days we were growing up.

"Most of our kaumatua recorded families living in the area where we are. There was none such for ours. Our whakapapa doesn't register."

A sense of shame over the slavery was probably a factor in the secrecy.

Lin Entwistle, chairwoman of the trust's hokopapa unit, said her group offered support to people who thought they had Moriori links.

"There's a major resurgence of finding our blood lines."

She linked this to the tribe's negotiations with the Government over a Treaty of Waitangi settlement.

"It's paramount that we swell our numbers in terms of registration so we can have a robust process when we go before the Office of Treaty Settlements."

But for Mr Retimana, a father of eight and grandfather of nine, the reasons are personal: "This is about my heritage."

The Waitangi Tribunal reported in 2001 that Moriori were entitled as native people of New Zealand to make claims under the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Moriori renaissance began in 1980 with the screening of a Bill Saunders television documentary.