From the MTG: Building relationships with tangata whenua

In the past two to three years, MTG Hawke's Bay Museum has been building relationships with tangata whenua, the hapū of Te Matau a Māu. Photo / Paul Taylor

In the past two to three years, MTG Hawke's Bay Museum has been building relationships with tangata whenua, the hapū of Te Matau a Māui, as they were known prior to the formation of Hawke's Bay and signing Te Tiriti.

This has never been done before. Nobody has ever prioritised a relationship with all hapū of Hawke's Bay.

When Te Matau a Māui was settled into a new Hawke's Bay by Donald McLean, his effect in implementing the Native Land Act and the New Zealand Settlement Act was to extinguish native title and erase all knowledge of some hapū having ever existed.

Most communities today could not name the hapū of Hawke's Bay, a situation mostly due to the teachings of imported Imperial Acts, which were to extinguish "barbaric natives".

In Napier in the year 1865, the Athenaeum Building (the original museum) was built to house the Mechanics Institute and the Philosophical Institute.

The men of these institutes were of colonial scientific movements and were tipuna or forefathers of the Colonial Museum (now Te Papa) and today's MTG Hawke's Bay. These men were responsible for the development and acquisition of the museum collections.

In 1883, one of these men Augustus Hamilton, came to my home of Pā Kōwhai to pick up my carved house. He took this meeting house to Dunedin for the New Zealand Exhibition which was targeted at an audience who were discussing my people's extinction.

Later, this house was given away in pieces to countries all over the world. Today, my siblings and I are the last family from Pā Kōwhai living on the remaining 4 acres of land of our Pā home. Naturally, my whānau hapū view a museum as the domain of others.

The Hawke's Bay Museums Trust Taonga Māori collections are a repository of oral history – the oral history of local hapū and Te Matau a Māui and Hawke's Bay's history.

As with museums nationally, MTG Hawke's Bay is the last place where we can view a physical link to Aotearoa's so-called "Stone Age".

These days labels in our Kahungunu gallery are quite different to the way history has been told in the past, told in a way now understood as hiding the truth – labels like: " … in defence of law and order against fanaticism and barbarism" such as are seen often on our concrete statues of settlers in parks.

Our new history exhibitions are both a Māori and New Zealand oral history told by hapū of Te Matau a Māui.

The taonga in the exhibitions talk of a time before Pākehā, before Ngāti Kahungunu. These taonga talk of Te Matau a Māui being dragged into a Hawke's Bay and of Aotearoa into a New Zealand. Each taonga exhibited is a major key event in our oral history.

Today MTG is working on an exhibition, Te Matau a Māui Whare Whakairo. It is a photographic exhibition of our carved meeting houses in Hawke's Bay.

The purpose of the exhibition is to create a repository of knowledge and a revitalisation of hapū presence in Hawke's Bay. It is to document, record and archive.

Ultimately creating an awareness among peoples of Hawke's Bay, of the obligations that came with the creation of Hawke's Bay.

This exhibition Te Matau a Māui will extend ourselves.

• Te Hira Henderson is curator Taonga Maori, MTG Hawke's Bay.