MAORI SKULL CASKET

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 10

MAORI SKULL CASKET

ANCIENT CUSTOM RECALLED DISPLAY BEING MADE AT MUSEUM The early Maoris had a custom of preserving the exhumed skull and other bones of distinguished ancestors as a precious talisman for the living. Sacred rites still surround these relics, but an agreement with the Maoris of Akaroa will soon permit the Canterbury Museum to make a display on this custom. One day some years ago, Mr Clarence Waghorn noticed a cave above the beach on his farm at Chorlton. The mouth was closed by stones uncommon to the beach, and it was this that attracted his attention. Inside he found a carved casket containing a skull with ear pendants alongside. It was apparently that of a chieftain. These relics were claimed by the Maoris of Akaroa. but after a sitting of the Maori Land Court it was agreed that the casket should be sent to the Canterbury museum for safe keeping, the only condition being that the skull should not be publicly displayed tr, This story was told to the Museum Trust Board yesterday by the Director (Dr. Roger Duff) when he reported novel features of the display now being mounted. &

To honour the pledge given to the Maoris, the casket only could be displayed, Dr. Duff said. “Mr R. Jacobs had succeeded in dramatising this theme m a superb demonstration of the art of the modern museum preparator,” he continued. To provide an appropriate setting, the cave had been reconstructed as a background for the skull casket and a simple Maori coffin °ther bones. An oil painting had been made to portray the resting place of the casket with a glimpse of its contents. Another supporting feature was a relief map of Banks Peninsula showing the location of such burial places. This exhibit was one of the panels which would be included with the displays of the Vangioni and Banks Peninsula Maori collections, Dr. Duff said