Posted on Jun 14, 2023
Mummified heads of Māori ancestors returned to New Zealand from Germany | CNN
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"The New Zealand Museum Te Papa Tongarewa, which works to preserve the country’s heritage and cultures, held a private repatriation ceremony on Wednesday to mark the return of the remains from seven different German museums.
The relics are a dark reminder of how the body parts of indigenous people were swapped and sold in a grisly, exploitative trade, not just in Germany, but around the world."
The relics are a dark reminder of how the body parts of indigenous people were swapped and sold in a grisly, exploitative trade, not just in Germany, but around the world."
Mummified heads of Māori ancestors returned to New Zealand from Germany | CNN
Posted from edition.cnn.com
New Zealand
Germany
Culture
Posted 11 mo ago
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LTC Eugene Chu
..."Hinemoana Baker and Te Papa's Te Arikirangi Mamaku-Ironside prepare to cover the ancestral remains. - German institute/Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
In Māori culture, the head was considered the most important part of the body. The face was marked with tattoos to designate identity and status, according to the Smithsonian magazine.
New Zealand enacted a government program called Karanga Aotearoa in 1990 to retrieve and repatriate the remains of its indigenous people, the country’s Māori, and the Moriori who inhabit the Chatham Islands.
Back in 2016, the Smithsonian Institution returned the remains of 54 indigenous people, including four mummified Māori heads, to Te Papa. Other institutions that have repatriated relics via the museum include London’s Natural History Museum and the Natural History Museum in Vienna.
The latest repatriation involved the skeletal remains of 95 ancestors of both peoples, together with six mummified tattooed Māori heads. They were returned by seven German institutions: the Grassi Museum in Leipzig; Reiss Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim; Linden Museum in Stuttgart; the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History; Georg August University in Göttingen; Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim and Museum Wiesbaden."...
..."Hinemoana Baker and Te Papa's Te Arikirangi Mamaku-Ironside prepare to cover the ancestral remains. - German institute/Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
In Māori culture, the head was considered the most important part of the body. The face was marked with tattoos to designate identity and status, according to the Smithsonian magazine.
New Zealand enacted a government program called Karanga Aotearoa in 1990 to retrieve and repatriate the remains of its indigenous people, the country’s Māori, and the Moriori who inhabit the Chatham Islands.
Back in 2016, the Smithsonian Institution returned the remains of 54 indigenous people, including four mummified Māori heads, to Te Papa. Other institutions that have repatriated relics via the museum include London’s Natural History Museum and the Natural History Museum in Vienna.
The latest repatriation involved the skeletal remains of 95 ancestors of both peoples, together with six mummified tattooed Māori heads. They were returned by seven German institutions: the Grassi Museum in Leipzig; Reiss Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim; Linden Museum in Stuttgart; the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History; Georg August University in Göttingen; Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim and Museum Wiesbaden."...
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