Museum appeal gifts

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32459, 20 November 1970, Page 14

Museum appeal gifts

The sum of $5753 has so far been given towards the Canterbury Museum’s public appeal for $lOO,OOO to build its planned new wing, which will cost $500,000.

A deputation seeking a subsidy from the Government had received a sympathetic

hearing from the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Seath) jn

Wellington earlier this month, the museum’s director (Dr R. S. Duff) said in his report to the Museum Trust Board yesterday. • The deputation appealed for support in particular for the National Antarctic Museum Centre of the Hundredth Anniversary Wing. The prospect of a favourable Government response would enable the board to count on an earlier start to building with the intention of featuring an in temational Antarctic exhibition in the wing as the museum’s contribution to the Christchurch Commonwealth Games in 1974, said Dr Duff. Particular interest' in the Antarctic proposals had been expressed by the United States Ambassador (Mr K. Franzheim) in a meeting in Wellington and he had strongly urged an approach to appropriate American philanthropic foundations.

in his report, Dr Duff said that several excellent exhibits had been lent to the ■museum during the month. Lady Ward, the widow of Sir Joseph Ward, had brought back for display a Maori pigeon feather cloak presented to the first Sir Joseph Ward early this century. She had also lent a thrum cloak, two greenstone mere, a greenstone tiki, pendant and hafted adze, three patu of bone and wood, and a lure fish-hook.

Maori family heirlooms were entrusted to the mus-. eum under the will of Tinirau Phillips, an elder of the Ngati-Rarua tribe of Wairua Pa, Blenheim, said Dr Duff. The items were the heirlooms of Mr Phillips’s grandfather, Keri Puke KohatuDr Duff said that Mr Phillips was the last of the family who the

tapu from the heirlooms ot the family dead, and they would have had to be buried with him if they had not been put in the custody of the museum. The collection included two mere, an adze pendant, four ear pendants and a feather cloak. Another valuable item lent to the museum was a model Maori canoe, intended to represent the ancestral canoe Nga Toki-mata-whao-rua. This was one of nine specially made in 1950 at the instigation of Princess Te Puea Herangi at a gathering at Ngaruawahia to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the arrival of the canoes from Hawaiki. The model was lent by Mr J. Te Tuhi. A specimen of great scientific value presented to the museum by Mr K. Tyree wasi toothed fossil bird dating from Miocene beds of 20 million years; ago, said Dr I Duff. The bones, found north' of the Waipara river mouth, were the only ones in the world. .