MAORI HEADS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19107, 28 February 1924, Page 10

MAORI HEADS.

MAJOR-GENERAL ROBLEY’S COLLECTION. (Fsom On® Own Coe -respondent.) WELLINGTON, February 26. Mr H. Fildes, in a, letter to the Post, refers to the cablegram about the purchase of Major-general Robley’s heads by a New York museum. He says: “I am afraid that someone connected with 1 the Press Agency in Fleet street has had some conversation with the General anent his famous collection and its disposal to the New York Museum (Natural 'History branch) in 1909. and has obtained the impression that the transaction is a recent one. Nor was it ever offered to the British Museum, though it is probable that the institution could have obtained it if disposed to give the price, £1260, It was General Robley’s earnest hope that the Nev Zealand Government would purchase the collection, and more toan one opportunity was given it to do so. “The cablegram is also wrong where it states the preserved heads were acquired from men who fought in the Maori wars. They were purchased or exchanged with other curios from scientists of European reputation, 'rran English and Continental curio dealers, and from hospital museums, and thev had been collected between 1790 and 1851. No preserved heads ever left this dominion after this last-mentioned date, as there was legislation against such traffic in them. “In your issue of September 4, 1920, vou were good enough to publish an article by me on Major-general Robley, wherein I gave the correct account of the disposal of this remarkable collection of dried tattooed heads, and the local papers so far back as 1909 chronicled the sale to the New .York Museimn.”