In 1925 Elie Cartan introduced the principal of triality specifically for the Lie groups of type $D_4$, and in 1935 Ruth Moufang initiated the study of Moufang loops. The observation of the title in 1978 was made by Stephen Doro, who was in turn motivated by the work of George Glauberman from 1968. Here the author makes the statement precise in a categorical context. In fact the most obvious categories of Moufang loops and groups with triality are not equivalent, hence the need for the word ``essentially.''