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A feather cloak given to Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung in 1957 will soon be back in Aotearoa.
Yesterday in Beijing, Māori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples formally received the cloak, which is being temporarily loaned to Te Papa.
It will go on display in June alongside Kura Pounamu, a show of greenstone artifacts which is currently touring China, and a show of photographs of China and New Zealand by the late Brian Brake.
The cloak was given to Chairman Mao on behalf of the fifth Māori King, Koroki by New Zealand pioneer film maker Ramai Te Miha Hayward, who with her husband Rudall Hayward were part of a delegation from the New Zealand China Friendship Society.
It was found in 2004 in the National Museum of China collection by then New Zealand Ambassador, John McKinnon.
He’d read Ramai’s account of the trip and seen the Hayward’s film, Inside Red China, which showed her placing the cloak on Mao’s shoulders.
Copyright © 2013, Uma Broadcasting Ltd
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