Lessons learnt: engaging with Māori taonga
The exhibition Tū te Whaihanga: A Recognition of Creative Genius opened at dawn on Monday 7th October 2019 at the Tairāwhiti Museum, Gisborne, Aotearoa New Zealand. It featured 37 taonga (Māori ancestral treasures) traded and gifted with James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour and the Tahitian priest-navigator Tupaia during encounters in the Tairāwhiti area in 1769. Over half of the taonga were from the Sandwich collection, on deposit at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, (MAA) from Trinity College, Cambridge. These included a rain cloak of flax, wood, bone and stone weapons, fishhooks and two…
Re-connecting with Taonga: Māori in the Museum
The 250th anniversary year of explorer James Cook’s arrival in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand has offered opportunities for the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA) to reflect on the ways we work with Cook voyage collections. The common perception of Cook as a heroic discover of new lands ignores the long histories of Oceanic voyaging, settlement and trade. Skilled…