Scots to decide on return of Maori artefacts

LONDON - A Scottish council is to decide today if two preserved Maori heads should be returned to New Zealand.

The tattooed heads, toi moko, are stored in Perth Museum, along with an 18th century kakapo feather cloak and 65 other taonga (treasure), such as tools, carvings and jewellery.

Councillors on Perth and Kinross Council's lifelong learning committee are meeting today to consider a formal request for the return of the heads to Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand.

A report to the committee says the cultural importance of the moko to Maori outweighs the value of keeping them in Perth.

A council spokeswoman said any return of the heads would be a divergence from the museum's standard collections policy.

"Normally the policy only recommends disposal of items when they are of no further use, either damaged or unconservable," the spokeswoman told NZPA.

Councillor and lifelong learning convenor George Hayton earlier told the Scottish Press Association that the committee had to consider the request sensitively.

"The cultural value and sacred nature of the toi moko to the Maori people is such that their return to New Zealand is without a doubt the most appropriate way forward," he said.

The taonga were taken by Perth-born ship's surgeon David Ramsay in 1822 and arrived in Scotland three years later.

Efforts to return the items were initiated by Lower Hutt man Stewart Reid, a Scottish-born doctor who found them listed in the museum catalogue on a visit back to Scotland in the 1980s.

Since then Dr Reid has spoken to governors-general, heads of museums and politicians to try to encourage interest in getting the artefacts home.

Te Papa's policy on human remains is that they should be returned to New Zealand if possible.

It is believed that more than 200 heads remain in overseas institutions. The biggest known collection outside New Zealand is held by the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Te Papa holds about 55 heads in a wahi tapu section, accessible only to certain people.

The museum has arranged for the repatriation of three Maori heads from a Glasgow museum next year.

- NZPA