1350, Maori has settled in what is now New Zealand.
I thought that the ocean blocked the communication between New Zealand and the main continent, and it should bring them peace and quiet.
It is a pity that the indigenous people on the island country on the east side of the Tasman Sea have not become as gentle as the kiwi birds on the island.
Maori people are tough by nature, and bloodthirsty is a trait engraved in their genes.
It is considered a great honor to kill other tribe members and have the leader's head made into an important souvenir.
Later, in 1642, the Dutch came to this island, but they had no intention of staying here and left in a hurry after landing.
More than a hundred years later (1769), a British voyager (Captain James Cook) set foot on this land with his crew.
Only this time, they are not as hasty as the Dutch, their destination is this.
The British not only brought European vices and venereal diseases, but also guns and guns. They also boasted of their "elegant" lifestyle and values from a high place. What is
mokomokai?
The earliest recorded skull trade dates back to 1770.
It was completed by a botanist named Joseph Banks who accompanied Captain James Cook.
During a transaction with local people, Banks met an old Maori man sitting in a canoe.
The keen-eyed Banks and team members immediately discovered three heads on the Maori boat.
So Banks wanted to get it.
He threatened the old man that unless he was willing to sell his head, he would not be able to eat and walk around.
But the Maori were hesitant,
In desperation, this Maori man was forced to sell the head of a 14-year-old boy in exchange for a pair of underwear.
Maori people are famous for their love of tattoos, and these cool patterns are not body decoration in the modern sense.
It has political and religious significance in Maori society. It is a sign of adulthood and a symbol of class status. It is also a weapon to intimidate the enemy on the battlefield.
This kind of tattoo is called moko by the locals.
When a person with moko dies, usually the indigenous people will keep the head of the deceased and then make something called mokomokai.
"The production process is as follows:
First, the brain and eyes are gouged out, and then the opening is sealed with flax fiber and gum . Then, the head is put into boiling water to cook or steam. Then, it is smoked and roasted in an open fire, then dried in the sun for several days, and finally treated with shark oil. The well-preserved head is mokomokai.”
mokomokai is a family treasure and is only used on special occasions.
Of course, the Maori also took the heads of enemy leaders killed in battle as trophies and made them into mokomokai.
These avatars played an important role in rituals and celebrations related to war and peace.
They were important in diplomatic negotiations between warring tribes, and the return and exchange of mokomokai was an important prerequisite for peace.
is popular in Europe and unfortunately
There is no doubt that when mokomokai was brought back to Europe, it immediately aroused great interest among Europeans.
Also in the following years, Maori traded more mokomokai, and these tattooed heads were sold as curios, artworks and museum specimens, fetching exorbitant prices in Europe and America.
One of the most common items in Maori trade with Europeans was the musket .
War has always been a part of Maori traditional life, but the emergence of guns changed the nature of war.
The tribes that obtained the guns gained a huge advantage over their neighbors, which forced the other tribes in the area to purchase guns to defend themselves, and they did whatever it took to obtain them.
Initially, Maori traded flax, potatoes, female slaves and mokomokai for guns and ammunition.
But compared to other items, only mokomokai is the most sought after by Europeans.
For example, purchasing a musket requires two tons of flax, but can also be obtained by trading only two mokomokai.
As a result, this left Maori people in despair.
Because this kind of business of making money by exploiting conflicts between tribes has always been a specialty of Westerners. This is how the African slaves came from.
Maori people were forced into a brutal arms race.
In order to obtain the muskets, they would tattoo slaves and prisoners before beheading them and selling them, and sometimes people were even tattooed after death.
Bloody inter-tribal musket warfare resulted in the deaths of 20,000 to 40,000 Maori and the enslavement of tens of thousands of Maori.
The end of the road
However, the script of the mokomokai transaction did not always proceed according to the Europeans' ideas.
It actually gradually declined in the 1830s.
Of course, this is not what Europeans have discovered.
But because of the war, the Maori population has decreased, and the Maori are no longer enthusiastic about firearms .
Because almost every surviving Maori tribe is fully armed.
Perhaps it was because the Maori people knew the reason, and the colonists began to "discover their conscience."
In 1831 the Premier of New South Wales issued a proclamation prohibiting further trading of New Zealand heads out of New Zealand.
In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and New Zealand became a British colony.
By then, the mokomokai export trade was all but over.
Maori also no longer keep mokomokai for friends and relatives, also because they fear for their personal safety.
As a local priest named Woods explained:
"First of all, unless he is a great chief, no man with a tattoo (on his head) can spend an hour safely, because he can be watched at any time until he loses his guard, then is knocked down and killed, and finally sells his head to the merchants"
Despite the trade ban, tattooed heads continued to be sold in the following years.
It is estimated that hundreds of these heads were bought and sold in Europe and America during the heyday of the mokomokai trade between 1820 and 1831.
Some of these have been repatriated to New Zealand, but many remain in museums and private collections.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-