Maori to NY: Let our People Sleep the Sweet Slumber
Pressure will be mounting on the American Museum of Natural History in New York to return sacred Maori remains to New Zealand after USA Today gave prominence to the issue of toi moko (tattooed…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Repatriation of Lost Ancestral Remains
A tattooed preserved Maori head, or toi moko, and skeletal remains, koiwi tangata, discovered in the anatomy department at the University of Birmingham, are being returned to New Zealand. University staff said the ancestral items…
After 150 years Mummified Maori head to Return to New Zealand
After 150 years Britain’s Warrington Museum is sending back the mummified head said to be that of a New Zealand Maori chief. The Maori head, or Toi moko, was brought to Britain in the…
Reviving the Legacy of a Great Chieftain
“After 150 years of marginalisation, things are finally looking up for the ,” Yasmine Ryan writes for Al Jazeera. “The central New Zealand town of Matamata is world renowned for its thoroughbred horse…
Right-Wing Danish MP Labeled ‘Ignorant’ About Maori Culture
Marie Krarup, a right wing Danish MP, offended New Zealand Maori by describing their traditional welcome as ‘uncivilised and grotesque’, says Richard Shears in The Daily Mail. The Danish MP, in New Zealand with…
Maori King’s Gift to Chairman Mao Loaned Back to New Zealand
‘The smallest is as a great as the largest’, said Chairman Mao when given a Maori cloak by New Zealand filmmaker Ramai Te Miha Hayward in 1957. Chairman Mao was replying to Ramai when…
Cooking Stones With The Force
Hangi rocks could reveal the magnetic history of the Earth going back hundreds of years, new research from Victoria University suggests. The findings, which were presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical…
Treasures Travel to Beijing
Te Papa is sending an exhibition of pounamu to China, where it expects a flurry of interest among museumgoers who haven’t seen how other cultures work with the precious stone. ‘Kura Pounamu: Treasured Stone…
Unexpected Genetic Diversity
Genome sequencing of the first-known four New Zealanders has revealed surprising genetic diversity, according to new research by the University of Otago. The complete mitochondrial genomes of the individuals – found buried at Wairau…
Alternative Traditional Remedies
“With its unique flora and fauna, New Zealand offers a large array of plants found only in that region, many of which became part of the Maori traditional system of medicine known as Rongoa…
Olympians Visit UK Marae
The New Zealand Olympic team paid a visit to the Hinemihi marae in Surrey, England. Hinemihi was brought to Surrey by Lord Onslow, the former Governor of New Zealand, as a souvenir of his…
Well-being in Advanced Age
Older Maori who are engaged in cultural practices and connected to their traditional community have a higher quality of life, according to a ground-breaking study by researchers at the University of Auckland called, “Life…
Taking Back History
New Zealand ambassador Rosemary Banks and French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand presided over a solemn ceremony at Quai Branly museum in Paris where 20 Maori ancestral heads and bones were given back to New…
Calling Australia Home
Almost one in five Maori — or 151,000 of the total population of 815,000 — now live outside New Zealand, with most — 140,000 — calling Australia home. An increasing number were born in…
Restitution of History
France will return some 20 mummified heads of Maori warriors still held by its museums back to New Zealand at a ceremony in January. The restitution follows a four-year political struggle which ended in…
Channelling Ancestral Paths
Sailors on the Pacific Voyagers project steered a fleet of seven ocean-voyaging traditional Polynesian sailing canoes or vaka moanas from New Zealand to San Francisco — guided only by the stars that once helped…
Pioneering MP
Whetu Trikatene-Sullivan, New Zealand’s longest serving female MP has died in Wellington, aged 79. Trikatene-Sullivan, of Ngai Tahu, was Labour MP for Southern Maori for 29 years, from 1967 till 1996. She famously travelled…
Maori Manuscripts Memorialised
A collection of 19th Century manuscripts written by Maori to record life before the arrival of Europeans has been officially listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World New Zealand register. The collection of 147…
Solemn Repatriation
A mummified and tattooed Maori head has been returned to New Zealand after spending 136 years in a Normandy museum. This is the first to be returned of a total of 16 in France….
Maori Forefathers Return Home
The remains of three Maori people, kept for 13 years in boxes in Lund, south Sweden, have been returned to a delegation from Te Papa led by the museum’s Kaihaut? Michelle Hippolite and representing…
Century-Old Tradition To Go On
The All Blacks may continue to perform the haka at international matches after coming to an agreement with the tribe that created it, Ngati Toa Rangatira. There had been fears their chanting days were…
Crowds Go Wild
Gisborne hosted as many as 25, spectators and 2 competitors at this year’s National Kapa Haka Festival, Te Matatini o Te Ra, held from16 through 2 February, with Rotorua-based Te Matarae i Orehu taking…
Dignity for Relics
“For decades, New Zealand has campaigned for museums to repatriate the mummified and heavily-tattooed heads of Maori warriors held in collections worldwide — now it must decide what to do with the gruesome but…
Distinctive Edginess
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, an exhibition of 26 contemporary local artists in various media, including photography, sculpture, video, painting and installation has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria in Brisbane. The pieces…
Te Reo Quandary
Justice Joe Williams who is chairing an inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal says the Maori language is in “crisis” and only urgent action will halt its decline. As older speakers of Maori die…
Return to the Land
Ethel May Helmbright — for some years a homeless fixture in Waikiki until she was hospitalised last year unable to remember her name — may well be the key to her estranged family’s land…
Soul on the Outside
Award-winning tattooist Te Tangitu Netana, 37, famed for inking UK popstar Robbie Williams, is offering his services to residents of Colchester in Essex until the end of August. Netana is currently in the area…
On Race and Harawira
Senior Lecturer at Victoria University’s School of English Film Theatre and Media Studies Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville discusses Maori party MP Hone Harawira’s recent comments about intermarriage in the Guardian. “Harawira stated to…
Progress Continues
The New Zealand Government’s recent endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been welcomed by UN indigenous human rights expert Professor James Anaya, who says good progress is being…
Maintaining meaning
Each year, Whakatane ta moko artist Rangi Kipa has some 2 clients fly into the country from the UK or Europe eager to make a statement with a unique Maori tattoo. Kipa says the…
Industry Icon
Bay of Plenty-born director Merata Mita has died in Auckland. Broadcaster Joanna Paul told The New Zealand Herald that Mita was an icon and her death, a massive loss. Paul said she met her…
Affectionately Known As
Using digital technology, a woman’s skull, found on the Wairau Bar archeological in 1939 and now thought to be 600 years old, has been recreated. Facial anthropologist Susan Hayes from the University of Western…
Return to the Homeland
The remains of 12 Maori – known as koiwi tangata – were recently returned to New Zealand having been part of the Welsh national collection at National Museum Cardiff. Research has shown that the…
Consonant clash
The New Zealand Geographic Board has announced the River City, Wanganui should be spelled Whanganui, after considering an application by Whanganui iwi, Te Runanga o Tupoho. This single letter has raised the ire of…
Best of both tribes
Linda White Wolf, a member of the Chickasaw Tribe from Oklahoma and host of Arizona Native News on the Pat McMahon Show on KAZ-TV, never knew about her Maori heritage until she happened to…
Moral repatriation
More than a dozen mummified Maori heads could be returned to New Zealand once a French bill is approved by the Senate in Paris. “The Maori heads that are still dispersed in European and…
With breath for peace
Richard Nunns, an authority on Maori traditional instruments or taonga puoro, performed the Gillian Whitehead composed “Hineputehue” at Luther College, Minnesota with the New Zealand String Quartet last month. Dunedin based Whitehead wrote “Hineputehue”…
Great Balls of Fire
The traditional Maori performance art of poi, now popular with flame on beaches and at festivals throughout the world, is taking off as a form of exercise in Hollywood with classes available at two…
Alternate landscapes
From next year, the North and South Islands could be renamed in Maori. A discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for…
Claiming the Treasure
Auckland Maori performing arts group Te Waka Huia has claimed the national title and the Donald McIntyre Trophy for the fourth time at the biennial Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Championships in Tauranga. Thirty-six…
Whiti te ra
The ‘Ka Mate’ haka has been officially designated the intellectual property of Ngati Toa in a compensation agreement signed in Wellington. Ngati Toa was compensated for its decades of use by the All Blacks,…
Gains from history
A Maori welcome onto a marae for visitors, a walking tour with Footprints Waipoua and the All Black performance of the haka are all examples of Maori reclaiming their heritage and promoting their culture…
Revolution in the Wananga
Maori educator and chairman of tertiary institution Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith was a key speaker at the World Indigenous People’s Education Conference in Melbourne held in early December. A…
Pouhaki Relocated
In 1920, Maori carver Tene Waitere gifted Prince Edward an eight-metre pouhaki, or flagpole, carved from a single tree trunk. The Prince then bequeathed the pole to Portsmouth Naval Base, where for the…
Te Rauparaha’s War Cry
The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to theIllustrated London News, “cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell’d caps in a device of novelty and…
Te Reo Goes Google
Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July’s Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa,…
Maori Treasure in Ireland
The extensive Maori art collection – part of a larger ethnological collection of exotic Pacific art – at Dublin’s National Museum includes, the Meyler collection, pieces Captain James Cook acquired on his voyages and…
Williamstown Whakaeke
Nga Manu Waiata are in dress rehearsal for the Australian national kapa haka competition – the group representative of 110,000 Maori who have made Australia their home. Thomas Rangihuna steps forward and welcomes everyone….
Futures in the Heavens
Bethany Edmonds, 26, is a Maori artist about to leave on a scholarship for New York University to study the conservation of traditional textiles; Kipa Rangiheuea works at the Auckland Museum. Both are proud…
Maori Role Models
New Zealand is a model for Canada in improving its relations with indigenous populations. By adopting lessons from the Maori experience, a report by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy is urging a…
Masterpieces in Ink
Ta moko is more than aesthetics, it is writes the Los Angeles Times, a solemn declaration of Maori identity and dignity. With a little ink, some stinging pain and a helping hand from the…
Ancestral Art in UK
George Tamihana Nuku, renowned Maori carver and sculptor, is staging his first solo exhibition at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Middlesbrough, UK. Nuku’s exhibition ranges from large carved pieces to traditional Maori weapons, and…
Shadows at Pataka
Porirua’s Pataka Museum is building on ties with the American Haille Ford Museum in an exhibition of North American Indian prints called ‘Crow’s Shadows’, put on in conjunction with Wellington’s International Festival of…
Reclaiming the Moko
Maori heritage claims the walls at the Massachusetts Peabody Essex Museum. Thirty large format images of moko by award-winning Dutch photographer Hans Neleman make up the exhibition. Kimiora Ereatara Hohua describes the story of…
Farewell to a Literary Legend
Hone Tuwhare, one of NZ’s most distinguished and best-loved writers, has died in Dunedin aged 86. Tuwhare was the first Maori poet to be published in English (No Ordinary Sun, 1964) and one…
Kohanga Reo Movement Continues to Inspire
NZ’s thriving kohanga reo movement was the subject of a lengthy Age feature last month. Kohanga reo, or Maori language and cultural immersion schools, have blossomed since the movement’s launch in 1980. There are…
