Memories of Te Māori

Hero image: Screengrab from Misc-Features - Te Maori Closing (Te Poroporoaki) - The People Say Farewell. Collection reference TZP85098. Credit: TVNZ / Te Reo Tātaki o Aotearoa.

This month we were pleased to launch a new curated collection celebrating the 40th anniversary of Te Māori. The groundbreaking exhibition launched taonga Māori onto the international stage in 1984 at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After touring the United States, Te Māori returned home to tour Aotearoa in 1986, rebranded as Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai (The Return Home). It exhibited in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland. Off the back of resounding international success and acclaim, there was a lot of buzz around Te Māori back home. Many New Zealanders were eager to both visit and get involved in the exhibition. For Māori, it was an opportunity to reconnect with their taonga.

Here at Ngā Taonga, we are very fortunate to have a few kaimahi who were involved in the exhibition’s home tour, including our very own Tumu Whakarae – Chief Executive.

Below, they reflect on their involvement in Te Maori: Te Hokinga Mai and how the exhibition helped shape their careers.

Honiana Love

Tumu Whakarae – Chief Executive

At the time I was a teenager and was lucky to be given the opportunity to be a guide in 1987 when the Te Māori exhibition was on display at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch.

As a guide, I was in the midst of the exhibition space and up close with the taonga on display. I have very fond memories from this time. I enjoyed being able to develop connections to the taonga and hang out with the other guides. Uenuku (‘The Rainbow’) was my favourite taonga/tupuna in the exhibition. It was so striking that all the guides would vie to be assigned to that area. Uenuku is a taonga from the Tainui people dating from around 1400. It represents a tribal atua of war who manifests as a rainbow. At 2.7 metres high, it is different in style from later Māori carvings and is more reminiscent of Hawaiian work.

Working with the taonga in Te Māori was pivotal in shaping my career. From my experience on Te Māori I knew I wanted my work to help connect people and taonga.

I went on to work with many taonga, including archives, taonga tūturu and audiovisual. I am sure many other Māori were influenced in the same way I was.

Kate Roberts

Pou Rokiroki Taonga – Director, Utaina

I was the conservator for the Otago Museum when the exhibition was on display there between November 1986 and February 1987. I was fresh out of training as an objects conservator, having set out to be an ethnographic conservator.

I was involved in the set-up of the exhibition space. It was the first time I’d seen a lot of the works and was really pleased to learn more about them and see them so beautifully presented as art, not ethnography.

It was such a wonderful opportunity – to work with colleagues from around the country, learn about the origin and significance of the exhibition, and be part of something cultural that was in the news and being given the attention and status it merited. I spent time with four people who became my life-long friends (as well as them becoming two couples!) as a result of being in the exhibition team. It made the poster copy Te Māori: It Will Change Your Life very prophetic for us.

The exhibition completely transformed my professional community. It raised the debate from ‘how can museums reflect Māori aspirations?’ to ‘how will the kaitiaki of taonga wrest back control of taonga from the colonising context of museums for their descendants?’. We went on a steep learning curve about decolonisation, First Nation action on repatriation and the importance of training Māori in roles related to the care of taonga.

With that in mind, I credit the exhibition with changing the trajectory of my personal career too. By the time it finished I knew I would have to train in something that wasn’t conservation of taonga Māori because I was not Māori myself. There were Pākehā conservators working on taonga Māori but they were established specialists. I was still just starting out. I left the Otago Museum, went home to Wellington, worked briefly on the set up of Te Papa as an objects conservator, then left to go to manage the Preservation Lab at the National Library.

Paul Meredith

Pou Ārahi – Deputy Chief Executive, Māori and Acting Group Manager, Collection Management

I was a guide with Tainui when they hosted Te Māori at Auckland City Art Gallery between June and September 1987 – the last stop in the exhibition’s home tour. I worked in the waka display section.

I think I was 15 or 16 at the time, and still learning the Māori language and developing a love for Māori history. I was very keen to get involved with Te Māori. I actually just turned up on the first day and asked if I could be a guide. I was told to come back the next day in a white shirt, black dress pants and black dress shoes.

What I really enjoyed was connecting with wider members of my iwi, the taonga and their history – and generally my taha Māori. I enjoyed having a bit of yarn with visitors and making them laugh with entertaining but respectful narratives about the taonga.

As much as it was a fun experience, it was also very moving. I well understood this exhibition was something special and at a time when te ao Māori was making a resurgence arguing for greater recognition as tangata whenua and for te Tiriti o Waitangi. That aspect wasn’t lost on me.

I have had further experiences with Te Māori through my career. I was on a research project at Waikato University for several years which included interviewing leading kaumātua. They would often reminisce about the exhibition with our research colleague, Tui Adams who himself was part of the contingent that went to New York. I worked for many years for Piri Sciascia, the Executive Officer for Te Māori. He would often reflect on Te Māori and share his memories with me. And when I started my mahi at Ngā Taonga, one of the first things I researched was audiovisual material from Te Māori.

If I had to summarise the impact of Te Māori, I’d say it wasn’t just an exhibition you viewed, it was something you felt – the mana of Te Māori.