It happened because Nukunuku ended all war on Rekohu. There weren't enough men to club shellfish off Awatotara or cut the jackets from seals at Manukau Point. He made them duel with sticks—none thicker than a thumb or longer than the most distended arms at Tuku Covenant—and the first to draw blood was the winner. Had the choice been otherwise the Moriori might still be first to see the sun each day, in the moment it pours godlike across the breakers and tacks hard to mainland like a cutter with burning sails. Black-billed taikos wheeling in formation over fists of basalt might still be taikos, and not what an Italian would later name them, magenta petrels. All told it might have been another changeless Age— but the brig Rodney brought Maori and muskets past hushed nesting burrows in Tuku Valley, and a billowing cirrus cover blew in from The Sisters and dulled the reflection of lights off Petra Bay. The British placed bets on how fast a thousand Maori could make it across the island. They watched from the decks as the Maori laid Moriori women in even rows along the beach. The Maori called it takahl— which meant both to walk the land and to clean.© Seth Abramson
from Gettysburg Review