The art of Hongi Hika - a warrior chief remembered for his devastating use of musket warfare - is on show at Toi Ngapuhi, an exhibition which opened last night in Kaikohe.
A self-carved wooden bust completed on Hongi's first trip to Sydney in 1814 is part of a number of taonga on loan from the Auckland Museum to Te Runanga a Iwi o Ngapuhi for its biennial festival.
Measuring 36cm, the bust features the rangatira's facial moko, and was completed when the keen agriculturalist and trader met missionary Samuel Marsden.
Hongi's military incursions through the North Island in the 1820s are remembered by other iwi as calamitous, ugly events.
But the piece shows Hongi was more than a man of war, museum curator Chanel Clarke, also from Ngapuhi, said.