Andre Baker, Manahi Paewai and Tiaki Tamihana at Makirikiri Marae where the Huia was brought by the three iwi before being returned to the Dannevirke Gallery of History. Photo / Leanne Warr
Andre Baker, Manahi Paewai and Tiaki Tamihana at Makirikiri Marae where the Huia was brought by the three iwi before being returned to the Dannevirke Gallery of History. Photo / Leanne Warr
A precious taonga has been returned to Dannevirke more than two years after it was stolen by a man claiming to be repaying a drug debt.
The female Huia bird was stolen from the Gallery of History in July 2020, an act which upset not only the volunteers at the museum, but the entire community.
Only the male was left in the display case following the theft of the female. Huia are considered sacred among Māori. Photo / Leanne Warr
Inquiries and even an offer of a reward for her return failed to turn up anything promising until May 2022 when she was found during a police search of a residential property in Paraparaumu.
However, the bird had been damaged, by what was suspected to be a dog, and was sent to Te Papa in Wellington to see what could be done to restore her.
She was still missing one leg and museum vice president Murray Holden was hopeful that Weta Workshop could find a way to replace that.
Her journey home began at Whakarongotai Marae in Waikanae, where she was placed safely in the hands of iwi by police and, following a powhiri, taken north to Huia Marae for a short ceremony before being brought to Makirikiri Marae.
Kaliah Rose Tamihana, 9, holds the precious taonga. Photo / Leanne Warr
A confederation of iwi, Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa and Te Atiawa, brought the bird home to Dannevirke on Friday to hand her over to Rangitane o Tamaki nui-a-rua at the marae.
Kaumatua Manahi Paewai said it was a special day for all of the community.
He said he had decided to name the bird Te Kurapae, or a “treasure that was lost and found”.
The visitors were called onto the marae for a powhiri before the bird was taken home to the museum to be reunited with her mate.
Volunteers from the Gallery of History were at the marae and promised a gift of greenstone in exchange for the precious taonga.
Justin Tamihana said it was his father, Tiaki, along with Atiawa ki whaka rongotai (Kapiti) chairman Andre Baker, who had been instrumental in ensuring the huia found her way home.
Representatives of the iwi that brought the huia back to Dannevirke after she was found in Paraparaumu. Photo / Leanne Warr
Huia were considered extinct with the last recorded sighting early in the 20th century, although it was thought they were still around in the Ruahines well into the 1940s and some believed there had been sightings as late as the 1990s.
The birds held an important place in Maori culture, where, according to author Michael Blencowe, only high-ranking Maori were permitted to wear the huia’s white-tipped tail feather.
The female was one of a pair of birds shot in 1889 and preserved, given as a wedding present by a local man to his daughter and kept in the family until being gifted to the museum.
The theft was not the first incident as someone took tail feathers from the male more than 10 years ago.
But it was the 2020 theft which shocked and disappointed the museum volunteers as it appeared the door to the small cabinet where the Huia were kept was prised open by the thief.
That man was eventually arrested and sentenced to 19 months in prison for the theft.
