Museum display celebrates tribe's versatility

A pounamu touchstone is at the entrance of the Mo Tatou exhibition.

South Island iwi Ngai Tahu are eager to show the world there is more to the tribe than its stellar commercial success.

The iwi, which has almost trebled its $170 million Treaty settlement, tends to dominate headlines with its strong and diverse commercial interests.

But tribal members are eager for the country to visit a new exhibition launched at Te Papa that celebrates the history and future of the country's most southern iwi. The exhibition, Mo Tatou, celebrates the tribe's values and vision through taonga (treasures), photographs, audiovisual displays and art.

Hundreds flocked to a predawn launch that inspired tears, joy and pride among the kaumatua, kuia and other Ngai Tahu members who entered Rongomaraeroa Te Marae o Te Papa Tongarewa.

Eighteen months in development, Mo Tatou is the fifth iwi exhibition at Te Papa, replacing the Whanganui exhibition.

Ngai Tahu chairman Mark Solomon said the exhibition was a time for pride and celebration. "This is an important and very special occasion for Ngai Tahu.

"It will be another defining moment in the tribe's history to have so many of our people and taonga together in one place at one time."

Mo Tatou is based on four themes: toitu te iwi (culture); toitu te rangatiratanga (tenacity); toitu te ao turoa (sustainability), and toitu te pae tawhiti (innovation).

These are said to be traits that helped the tribe to settle in the South island, to overcome near-decimation at the hands of rival iwi and then overcome the effects of land loss through colonisation.

Te Papa exhibition curator Megan Tamati-Quennell, who is of Ngai Tahu descent, said visitors would be impressed by the display's contemporary feel. "[Mo Tatou] is very diverse."

She said the exhibition would help to balance a perception of the tribe as just a commercial success, displaying the history and treasures of the generations of Ngai Tahu who have adapted and survived in the South Island.

Mo Tatou, the Ngai Tahu Whanui Exhibition, runs at Te Papa until 2008.


Ngai Tahu

* The South Island tribe is the country's third largest iwi, with 37,500 members.

* It is the richest, with an asset base of more than half a billion dollars.

* Ngai Tahu means people of Tahu after their founding ancestor, Tahu Potiki.

* The tribe came close to being wiped out after invasion by neighbouring iwi and impact of colonisation in the 19th century.