Tāmaki Paenga Hira, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, says an 1826 land sale document is an important piece of Aotearoa history – especially because it carries symbolic representations of rangatira of the time.
An early version of the New Zealand Company attempted to buy four islands in Ngāti Paoa territory on the Hauraki Gulf — Pakatoa, Rotoroa, Pōnui, and Pākihi — but the sale was eventually abandoned because of the musket wars.
Museum chief executive David Reeves it was the first organised attempt to colonise Aotearoa – and a living piece of history for Ngāti Paoa.
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The descendants now have the opportunity to see, a physical document that was actually in the presence of their tūpuna, and the ink on the parchment is incredibly sacred because it is the very form that their tūpuna applied to this document – and it has survived nearly 200 years.
David Reeves says the document is being protected and restored, and is likely to go on public display next year.
