Interesting Museum In North Otago Homestead

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 3

Interesting Museum In North Otago Homestead

“The Press” Special Service

DUNEDIN, January 23. A small, unobtrusive room built on to a smartly painted farm homestead at Katiki. North Otago, contains historical and natural history collections of considerable interest. It has been named the Monterey Museum by its youthful owner, 20-year-old Michael Trotter.

Even at primary school Mr Trotter was interested in the material side of Maori culture, and while a pupil at Waitaki Boys’ High School he began to gather little bits and pieces. His interest grew into a hobby, the hobby developed into something even more intense, and by 1951 Michael decided that he would need a special 100 m for his fast-growing collection. A new room was added to the Trotter homestead, and the Monterey Museum came into existence.

Material from moa hunter camps, rocks, minerals, fossils, insects, mollusca, early history material on Mi W. S. Trotter (who came to New Zealand in 1840), and a miscellaneous collection were catalogued and attractively displayed in glass cases and on shelves.

Today the Monterey Museum is a tribute to Mr Trotter’s ingenuity, intelligence. and patience. Although many of the exhibits have been given to him, from friends and museums in New Zealand and overseas, he has obtained most of his comprehensive Maori collection from moa hunter camp sites within the Katiki district—from an old whare site and

a “recent” site dating back about 200 years. His hundreds of Maori artifacts include needles, an eel spear prong, an adze, scrapers, chippers, knives, files, a comb tooth, sinkers, pendants, hook points, drill points, chisels, hammers and crushers. He also has a flute made from human bone.

The pride of the whole collection are five bones of a giant rail. Discovered by Mr Trotter, they are the first such bones found in association with any type of Maori occupation, and provide proof that the giant rail did exist, and was eaten by moa hunters in the Katiki district.

He collected most of his varied and colourful mollusca section on the beach at Katiki. although some of the exhibits come from other parts of New Zealand and overseas. Among the many other interesting exhibits are moa bones, a whale rib and jawbone, a 1797 English penny, tuatara eggs, a ship’s figurehead, ancient bottles, fossilised bone, wormridden wood, a South African snake, and a musical exhaust pipe. Then there is probably the oldest newspaper in Ne>v Zealand, and certainly one of the most historic issues in the world It is an original copy of “The Times” of Thursday. November 7, 1805. and is devoted to the official account of the Battle of Trafalgar. A member of the Polynesian Society and also of the Archaeological Association, Mr Trotter has published one paper in the Polynesian Journal and a 12-page guide book to the Monterey Museum.