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NAGPRA an Introduction ARE MAORI NATIVE AMERICANS? When MAUI POMARE was alive we had many discussions on whether Maori were decendants from Native America. Growing up as a devout Morman (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), I was taught we are. How ironic that one of the largest American churches with International membership in the Millions believes that we are. Through all their doctrines we Maori are direct decendants of the Lamanites and the Nephites who according to Church Doctrine were the original decendants of the American continent. This in fact makes us brothers of the American Indians with our ancestors migrating down to Hawaii & Polynesia. Whenever Maori attend the funeral of a loved one our orators always lament in their speeches to the dearly departed. "Haere ki Hawaiiki nui Hawaiiki Roa Hawaiiki Pamamao" travel oh spirit to the greater Hawaii from whence your ancestors came. How ironic KUPUNA in Hawaiian means TUPUNA to us (Ancestors). ALOHA (love) to them AROHA to us. The POLYNESIAN CULTURAL CENTRE at Laie on the Island of Oahu is a testament to the Morman belief with villages from all the Pacific Islands recreated in one huge education centre. Not only is the complex a testament to Archeological, Ethnographic fact, It is also the living Doctrine of one of America's greatest Religious Institutions. When our late founder made one of his trips to the USA on an American Fellows scholarship grant, he listed among the Trusts Inventory that there was a MOKMOKAI at the BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY in Salt Lake City. I visited the Museum of Peoples and Cultures at the University to find that they according to their records have never had any Mokomokai in their collection, only Hawaiian Skeletal Material which hads since been returned to HUI MALAMA. I also visited the Church Head office and was given an assurance that we would be given all the assistance to retrieve any Human Cultural Material for Repatriation to New Zealand. I was given a letter from the Church Head administration. After much searching we finally located the existence of a full Tatooed MOKOMOKAI. This was up to 4 yrs ago being displayed at Lagoona Park an amusement park in Utah.I have recieved correspondence from the park thru our Utah lawyer that every effort is being made to return the Taonga back to Aotearoa via our Trust. Thru HUI MALAMA it is interesting to note that the USA Government does not officially recognise the HAWAIIAN's as Native Americans. Yet HUI MALAMA is covered by the controversial NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVE PROTECTION REPATRIATION ACT. Our Hawaiian friends have been successful in mediating a significant return of Maori Skeletal remains from an American Institution for our Trust and they are assisting us in several more. As the Director of the MOKOMOKAI Education Trust I am testing our validity to the USA senate and the whitehouse via one of America's leading citizens watch our updates section. What is NAGPRA's function. check out their Website. Na Maui Dalvanius Prime. Director Mokomokai Education Trust. http://www.cast.uark.edu/products/NAGPRA/ |
Most cultures from the civilised to the more primitive have an almost universal reverence for human remains. Many cultures attest imaginatively and abstractly in their religious beliefs an existence beyond the short span of an individual's life. Yet there is everywhere and among all peoples an engrossing fascination with those cultures that have developed diverse ways of preserving what remains of the body after death. |
| Tue Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand have a special attitude towards moko (skin carving) which can reveal the genealogy of the person. Moko is a treasure, more especially in an oral society. There was an appreciation of artistry in the tattooed heads of those of chiefly rank or of notable enemies. In this way, ancestors after death did not so much leave their people as remained part of their communal society, and their remains were accorded the respect for illustrious persons and often, if of your own iwi, affection. |
| Methods by which the early Maori were able to prepare for preservations human heads with moko were unique. In other cultures, mummification, Pyramids and ornate crypts, embalming, and shrinking with heat were used but were inappropriate for Maori who relied on an intricate method of drying heads. |
| Like other peoples, Maori surrounded the handling and treatment of the deceased with sacred songs and prayers. |
| Each step in preparing their bodies was prescribed by tohunga - those with special knowledge and training and rituals both of preparing bodies was ordained and observed precisely, with any variation incurring the punishments associated with breaking tapu. |
| During the 18th and 19th centuries, initially spurred by the demand for cadavers for medical research, trading in body parts grew. What had been a Polynesian practice became corrupted into a marketable commodity. To supply museums and private collections in Europe and America, heads of the chiefs and notable people with intricate moko - face and body carving or tattoo - were stolen. Heads of the vanquished and of slaves were sometimes tattooed in a cursory fashion and shipped out. Humanism played no part in the frenzy and rush of marketing and in other cultures. the despoliation of graves. |
| An officer in the 68th Durham light infantry, Horatio Gordon Robley, though initially lured to collecting Maori heads, made it his life's work to study and appreciate the art of mokomokai. Robley, ordered to New Zealand and arriving in 1664, within months became involved in military action against Maori at Pukehinahina, the notable and famous gate pa battle in which Maori surrendered. As a painter of some quality, Robley was fascinated by the artistry of moko and soon became aware of the intricacies of preparing human heads - and collecting them through his long life. Robley, often affectionately called Te Ropere, maintained his preoccupation with mokomokai and his collections became world famous. though he spent only two years stationed in New Zealand, his descendants live here still |
| Of many Maori who have been eminent in stretching their academic interests towards a crusade for the return of Maori heads to their homelands, none have been more distinguished as a collector of Maori antiquities and mokomokai than the recently deceased Maui Ormond Woodbine Pomare, OBE, Dip. Ag, MNZSFM, MNZIAS. FRSA, JP. |
| On that thorny topic of tapu which has been defined in a maori dictionary as "forbidden; inaccessible; not to be defiled" and which is constantly invoked when dealing with the subject of mokomokai, the sagacious and venerable Maui Pomare quoted Elsdon best: "For all the power and might that tapu has over peoples lives, more often than not the motivating factor was the fear of its consequences. Tapu is a state of mind. It is culturally specific, it has no tangible substance, yet it is everywhere present, even today." |
| Fear of tapu was no impediment to Maui's life-long campaign in New Zealand and abroad to repatriate mokomokai from museums and individual collectors. Securing the return or those heads was his unquenchable passion. The existence of this project is itself an outcome of his aims as his contacts, knowledge and associates have been available for this series. |
| From a farming background and holding considerable mana with the Te Ati Awa of Taranaki, Maui Pomare was the grandson of the illustrious Sir Maui Pomare who, along with other young Maori educated at Te Aute College. |
| Apirana Ngata., James Carroll and Peter Buck, all of whom became knights of the realm, were prominent in political life and maori affairs. Apirana Ngata., James Carroll and Peter Buck, all of whom became knights of the realm, were prominent in political life and maori affairs. |
| Following his own interest in the history of his people, Maui Pomare JNR before he became an enthusiastic collector of Maori antiquities and was a well known figure at Sothebys, Christies, and other haunts of auctioneers and collectors. |
| His interest in mokomokai was sparked by David Simmons, an ethnologist at Auckland Museum who compiled on his own account a "Directory of Maori Remains" held in museums and medical colleges outside New Zealand. until he died in 1995. Maui Pomare enjoyed a life long and close collaboration with David Simmons. |
| Once getting started on his campaign to secure the return to New Zealand of mokomokai from foreign parts, Maui Pomare was energetic, withstood verbal opposition, and eventually won over public and media support |
| The final programme in the series follows the visit to various museums which hold collections of maori heads. |
| Thanks to research by Robley biographer and The National Museum's Art Curator Tim Walker three Robley descendants agree with Maui Dalvanius (on whom the mantle of Maui Pomare has been placed to make this series) to accompany him on a visit to museums where their ancestor's collections of mokomokai are held - this includes Robley's exquisite collection of thirty nine mokomokai sold to the American Museum of Natural History New York. Other museums on their itinerary include the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, The British Museum, London, The Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburoh, the Whitby Museum, The Museum fur Volkekunde, Berlin1 and Miklukho- Maklay St. Petersburg and finally the National Museum in Vienna. In some of these and elsewhere there has been interest in such a visit for the attention it will generate to the role of museums and in some of them, since Maui Pomare's overtures, there has been indications of a willingness to repatriate Maori heads |
| Ceremony, sanctity, and serenity will be needed to obtain a fulfilment of Maui Pomare's wishes. For that purpose, the visit will be accompanied by a delegation of learned scholars, historians, musicians and Museum of New Zealand directors and curators. |
| A Maori Tohunga with the delegation will buttress academic views on mokomokai. Who better to confirm the religious purport of hallowed human remains. |
| The Wairua, the spirit in Maori life is fostered and its vitality cherished by the physical tattooed beauty of moko. In the art of moko, the delineation of lineage and place, without words and without life, affirms existence. |
| MAUI POMARE LEGACY |
| MAUI CONSIDERED THE NATIONAL MUSEUM'S MOKOMOKAL COLLECTION ON PARALLEL TO THE FAMOUS EGYPTIAN ART OF MUMMIFICATION. A MOKOMOKAI GALLERY WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND LASERS TO DISPLAY PREVIOUSLY RECOVERED AND NEWLY REPATRIATED HEADS WAS HIS DREAM AWAITING FULFILMENT |