Marquis to bring Maori head back to N.Z.

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 8

Marquis to bring Maori head back to N.Z.

PA Wellington The Ngati-Porou tribe wants a shrunken Maori chiefs head being returned to New Zealand preserved in a museum, according to a spokesman for the tribe, Ms Keri Kaa. The head, believed to be of a chief of the NgatiPorou, an East Coast tribe, will be returned to New Zealand personally by its owner, the Marquis of Tavistock. The Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, confirmed yesterday that the Government had agreed to a proposition by the marquis that the head be returned to New Zealand if he could bring it personally. Ms Kaa said she was delighted by the news, which raised hopes that

other heads in museums throughout Europe might now be more readily returned to their Maori people. Many of the Ngati-Porou tribe had believed that the head should be buried as soon as it was returned to New Zealand, but feelings had changed, she said. “Once the head is buried it is lost forever and many of us now think that a treasure like that should be preserved in a museum, though not necessarily on public show.” Ms Kaa said it had been a traditional practice for Maoris to take the heads of their beaten foes in battles, as had been the case in many other cultures. “It was the ultimate insult. The head was considered the seat of all know-

ledge and learning, the most tapu part of the body, imbued with sacred thought,” she said. Victorious warriors would place the heads on stakes on the pallisades as a continuing insult to the beaten tribe. “There was a lot of mana in taking them, and it was a great loss for the beaten tribe. New battles were often fought by tribes trying to recover heads. “It was very important that the heads be recovered and secretly buried,” said Ms Kaa, a lecturer in Maori. The head to be returned by the Marquis of Tavistock is mounted on a wooden base with a label noting: “A chiefs head of the Notteebow tribe, East Coast, New Zealand.”