May 21, 2015
Grave plunder on its way home
A museum in Austria has agreed to return the remains of mummified Tainui child, more than a century after it was taken from a cave by notorious collector Andreas Reischek.
Te Papa’s kaihautu, Arapata Hakiwai, says the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna has also returned nine human vertebrae with a piece of flax weaving, collected by Reischek from Te Taitokerau, a coffin with skeletal remains from three different individuals he collected in the same area, and a mummified head or toi moko collected by Johann Georg Schwarz.
He says Reischek's exhibitions to acquire Maori remains and taonga from hidden wahi tapu in the late 1800s marks a dark period in New Zealand's history.
The chair of Te Papa’s repatriation advisory panel, Professor Pou Temara, says a precedent was set for the repatriation by the successful effort by the late Maori Queen Dame Te Atairangikaahu in 1985 to return to an important ancestor home from Austria.
The tupuna will be formally welcomed home at a powhiri at Te Papa on Monday, after which they will undergo a period of quarantine, conservation and research before being returned to their whanau.
Copyright © 2015, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com