Taonga return home

Taonga dating back over 500 years has returned home to Wairarapa in a Maori artefact collection welcomed at Aratoi museum yesterday that includes moa and human bone implements.
Robin Potangaroa, chairman of Te Runanga O Te Hiika a Papauma ki Wairarapa, said the 94 artefacts that comprise the collection ? gathered by a northeastern Wairarapa farming family while beachcombing in the 1920s ? had come up for auction by a descendent in Auckland this year.
He said the artefacts had been gathered and kept as a single collection from beaches near Akitio and Owahanga north of Castlepoint.
Te Papa Museum in Wellington was alerted to the upcoming auction and brokered a direct sale of the artefacts to Papauma, Mr Potangaroa said.
"We came up with $5000 and the Masterton District Council - through the Maori liaison task group ? contributed $4000. The taonga was purchased as a complete collection," he said.
More than 100 people attended a repatriation ceremony at Aratoi yesterday to welcome the taonga home that included about 60 members of the Papauma hapu, Mayor of Masterton Bob Francis and Masterton District councillors and officers, representatives from the hapu of Akura and Tumapahia-a-rangi hapu, Rangitaane O Wairarapa iwi authority, Greater Wellington Regional Council chairman Ian Buchanan, and Te Papa staff.
"It is more than fortunate that the taonga found its way home again and that through Te Papa and the Masterton District Council, we were able to purchase the complete collection," Mr Potangaroa said.
"We could never have competed if the collection was put on the open market, it would have been quickly priced out of our reach.
"This is about kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and hapu. Some of our people have travelled from Auckland, Wellington, and throughout Wairarapa to be here.
"Now the taonga is back home in Wairarapa and will be housed at Aratoi ? the safest to hold them ? for the benefit of us all. And in the end we're all family anyway."
Arapata Hakiwai, Te Papa Maatauranga Maori director, said the artefacts have been registered on a national database as required under law and that there was considerable goodwill shown by the owner and auction house during negotiations.
"Te Papa actively monitors the selling of taonga nationally and overseas.
"It happens occasionally that we are able to persuade and influence vendors and prevent collections being lost to the winds. This was one of those times."
Dougal Austin, Te Papa collections manager, said there were several significant pieces in the Papauma collection with some of the artefacts dating back more than 500 years.
He said the collection was transported in six boxes that contained stone adzes, fibre, fishing and hunting implements made from moa and tuatara bone, a pounamu hei-tiki, and a human thighbone that had been crafted at one end.
He said the human bone was excluded from the sale but remains as a vital element in the collection.
Marcus Buroughs, Aratoi museum director, said the arrival home of the collection "could not come at a better time" as it would now be included in the long-term history exhibition at the museum that focuses on Wairarapa history from 1200AD onward.