Renowned warriors home after 160 years

By Angela Gregory

WHANGAREI - The preserved heads of two Northland Maori chiefs who died in battle early last century were to be laid to rest early today in an overnight ceremony near Whangarei.

The Auckland Museum released the mokomokai of the chiefs Moetarau and Koukou last night in what is thought to be the first return of preserved heads to Maori.

The chairman of the Whatitiri Maori Reserves Trust, Taipari Munro, said yesterday that about six Ngapuhi elders would accompany the heads on the three-hour journey north to the Maungarongo Marae at Poroti, 20km west of Whangarei.

Mr Munro said the heads were moved at night as that was customarily the proper time for the dead to travel.

The museum had made special watertight boxes for their interment in the chiefs' homeland of Whatitiri, after a funeral service at 4 am.

Mr Munro said hundreds of descendants had gathered at the marae yesterday to welcome the warriors home and agree on the final resting place.

"There is a lot of excitement, we have been waiting a long time. These are the last Maori human remains to be returned to Northland."

Mr Munro said the trust learned about three weeks ago it could have the heads returned after 10 years of working through the required processes for repatriation.

The Ngati Rua chief Koukou and Ngati Ngiro chief Moetarau were highly regarded leaders and renowned warriors, he said.

They died at a battle at Otuihu Pa, near Opua, in 1837, when helping to defend the Taumarere faction of Ngapuhi from the iwi's Hokianga warriors.

Major-General Robley reported later that the heads were preserved by Muru Paenga at Te Puna.

Mr Munro said the heads were stolen from the Whatitiri burial caves in the 1840s, and an iwi member had recognised them in an Auckland curio shop in the 1850s.

"But unfortunately they had already been purchased by a ship captain who took them to England."

Mr Munro said they ended up in the London Royal School of Medicine but were later exchanged for Moriori cranium caps and returned to New Zealand in 1883.

The Auckland Museum had displayed the heads until the 1950s when it was decided that was no longer appropriate, and they were stored.

The museum director, Dr Rodney Wilson, said that while koiwi (human remains) had been returned to Maori in the past, he believed this was the first time mokomokai had been handed back.

Dr Wilson said curators had generally considered preserved heads were artefacts as they were modified human remains and were historically sold by Maori as collectables. However, the museum trust board had agreed that the two chiefs' heads were not artefacts and deserved a dignified burial.

Dr Wilson said the Whatitiri trust had first requested the return of the heads in 1989, but the museum had asked it to get approval of all hapu descending from the chiefs.

"That was a lengthy process, but they did it and reinstated their claim last year."

Dr Wilson said the heads had been treated with dignity at the museum.

"I have been at the museum five years and never seen them."

It had another two mokomokai but their origins were not known.