GIFT TO MUSEUM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22928, 5 January 1938, Page 13

GIFT TO MUSEUM

PAET OF MAORI COFFIN IMPORTANT ACQUISITION VALUE FOR RESEARCH WORK DISCOVERY AT MAHURANGI ■ ■ J Of particular interest to anthropologists and ethnologists is portion of an old Maori coffin which has recently been presented to the Auckland War Memorial Museum by Mrs. R. Sullivan, of Mahurangi. It was found many years ago at Mahurangi Head and is the first from this district to be acquired by the museum. Several old Maori coffins at present on display there came from the Hokianga district, and although the ago of Mrs. Sullivan's gift cannot be accurately estimated, it is regarded as a particularly important acquisition for research purposes. Tho discovery of the coffin, which bears a carving of a human figure upon it, was quite fortuitous. Mr. A. W. B. Powell, acting-director of the museum, was making a launch cruise in the district over the Christmas holiday period and decided to seize the opportunity to visit Mrs. Sullivan, of whose possession of a number of ethnological specimens he had heard, although he did not know of the existence of this portion of the coffin. It was as a result of Mr. Powell's visit that Mrs. Sullivan presented the relic, together with a number of South Sea Island pieces, to the museum. The specimen will probably be retained for research purposes at the museum and will not bo displayed, since those coffins already being exhibited have much more immediate interest for the public than this one, although it i 3 highly important for the work of the museum's ethnologist, Mr. V. F. Fisher.