November 25, 2012
Koiwi coming back from North America
Te Papa has organised the return of remains of four Māori from North America.
A skull and a cranium collected in 1950 from a limestone burial cave near Kāwhia and gifted to an anthropologist from Stanford University in San Francisco will be taken straight back to Waipapa marae in Kāwhia when they come back in the next few days.
A set of skeletal remains, believed to be from Hawke's Bay, will be taken to the national museum in Wellington.
They come from the family of an Oklahoma professor, who was at Victoria University in the 1950s and 1960s.
The professor's son-in-law contacted Te Papa about his desire to return the remains after reading of a similar repatriation of remains from France.
The museum is also expecting a toi moko preserved head from the Musee de Beaux-Arts, Montreal, Canada.
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