Paul Tapsell: Pukaki - A Comet Returns

(Reed $34.95)

Review: Gilbert Wong

The carving of the ancestral father Pukaki of the Ngati Whakaue, a sub-tribe of the Te Arawa of Rotorua, has come to symbolise a vexed issue in the museum world: should a people's treasures be returned?

For Ngati Whakaue, the Pukaki carving, exhibited in the international Te Maori exhibition, is no less important than the Elgin Marbles are to the Greeks.

In 1997 the Auckland Museum, in the words of author Paul Tapsell, turned from villain to hero when its board agreed to return the sacred carving.

Pukaki now resides in the offices of the Rotorua District Council which, writes Tapsell, was Pukaki's original intent: to gift a taonga to symbolise the trust between treaty partners Ngati Whakau and the Crown.

This richly illustrated account of the taonga's origins, Pukaki's life and the return home is a wonderful glimpse into a world few of us have entry to.