Museum tells local story of Māori resources

Rosemary Deane has curated the Taonga Māori Exhibition at Western Bay Museum. Photos / Rebecca Mauger

Stories from the past are brought to the forefront with Western Bay Museum's Taonga Māori Exhibition - with a new focus on objects special to our area.

A portion of the museum's Samuel Middlebrook Collection has been honed to focus on its local historic taonga (treasured possessions). The exhibition commenced at the reopening of the museum last month.

The Taonga Māori Exhibition has been put together by collections curator Rosemary Deane from Waihi.

Rosemary peaks through the collection of local historic objects.

Museum manager Paula Gaelic says Rosemary has spent many hours researching and cataloguing each object. Much of the collection's objects — which were originally from the Katikati Heritage Museum — had no backstory.

''If there's no story behind the objects you can't bring them to life,'' Paula says. ''Now we have a story.''

''This is all about the natural resources Māori had around them, food, the rivers, the coastline, Mayor Island because that was a massive resource for them, and the preparation of food.''

Much of the items are from the Middlebrook Collection. When George Vesey Stewart came to Tauranga in 1874 to look for land, young Sam Middlebrook was assigned to assist him.

Samuel had a long association with Katikati, Waihi and Waihi Beach.

He acquired a collection of Māori artefacts over the years as gifts for translating documents in cases before the Māori Land Court. Samuel was a surveyor, baker, carpenter, butcher and dentist. He collected natural history objects and militaria.

Precious taonga mostly from the Samuel Middlebrook Collection.

Rosemary says visitors can now get a better feel for our historical area. New labelling helps to tell more of the local story for visitors.

She says there are a few historical gems in the mix — such as the Māori stones, which marked the edges of gardens to show ownership, and a canteen dating back to 1861.