The Remarkable Feather Waka: A Moriori Tale of Long ago

In 1904 William Baucke published a story in NZ Herald, one that he had heard as a child growing up in the Chatham Islands. This new publication is a retelling, in modern idiom more easily understood in 21st Century, of the tale that Baucke related. Albatross chicks were a prized food source for the Moriori people. One day a chief with his sons and two strangers set off in a handmade canoe (waka) on a three day voyage to collect the birds. Disaster lay ahead. One of the chief's sons was drowned, and so according to Moriori custom, the strangers knew they would be blamed for this misfortune. One night they stole the canoe and disappeared. The chief was not to be outwitted. He instructed his sons to prepare bones and feathers so that a serviceable craft could be constructed in which they sailed safely home.