Historic return to New Zealand’s looted heritage

It’s been more than 130 years since the graves of about 64 Māori and Moriori, two indigenous Polynesian peoples, were looted by Austrian embalmer and grave robber Andreas Resch. The remains, including the skulls, will be collected on Sunday in Wellington at the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa. Under a New Zealand-backed program, this resettlement process was completed after 77 years of negotiations with Austria. Maori leaders were already calling for their return in 1945.

William “Bo” Tamara, chair of the Te Papa Resettlement Advisory Committee, said in a statement: “These ancestors were stolen by those who don’t care about Maori communities. And to add: “In his diaries, Reischek boasts of escaping from Maori surveillance, plundering sacred places and violating ‘tabu’ (sacred rules). He knew just what he was doing. Andreas Reschek has worked in New Zealand for more than twelve years. Until 1889 he documented in his memoirs how many graves were looted on the Chatham Islands, Christchurch and Auckland.

Innovative Museum T Papa Tungwara Which means “treasure container” in T Rio Maori, the native language of Aotearoa (New Zealand), applied for redemption in 2002. The place was opened in 1865. At that time, the Colonial Museum still displayed ethnographic curiosities as well as objects from antiquity. Today, Te Papa is home to 2.4 million treasures that tell the stories of New Zealand and its people. The ultimate retrieval request aims to recover all the remains scattered around the world, in particular the mummified and tattooed heads called upuko tuhi where You are moko and mokomokai. In January 2012, 322 heads (including 21 from France) were returned out of about 500 kept in museums around the world. Ten years later, Austria finally acceded to this request. Catherine Voland, Director of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, spoke supportive: “I am glad that we can contribute to the healing process.”

Emma Snow