Seeking Maori Artifacts

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30966, 24 January 1966, Page 1

Seeking Maori Artifacts

“The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, January 23. A German publisher, trying to re-establish a museum honouring a German writer, is in New Zealand in search of Maori artifacts, pictures, and clothing. “First I must hear what is important to see,” said Mr Joachim Schmid, who is particularly interested in visiting Rotorua, and Maori villages. The museum, named after the author, Karl May, was founded in what is now East Germany. May a 19th-century writer of 70 novels, was also a serious author who did research in the history and geography

of the countries he wrote about.

The novels, basically adventure with educational overtones, are concerned with North American Indians, Africans, Asians, and Indonesians. “The people were interested in seeing the things Karl May had written about,” Mr Schmid said of the museum, which contained May’s collection of Indian and Asian exotica.

“But after a while, when the Communist Government

took over, they used the museum as propaganda against the United States,” he said.

Mr Schmid was able to get some of May’s personal belongings out of East Germany and now seeks to reestablish the museum in his home town, Bamberg, in northern Bavaria.

There are already a few exhibits from New Zealand in the museum which Mr Schmid says have created some interest.