Taonga: The extraordinary tale of Emma Vickers' Taonga

Emma Vickers with "South Sea Bubbles by the Earl and the Doctor", written by her ancestor, the Earl of Pembroke. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

The house I grew up in is called Wilton House. My family's been in that stately home from Henry VIII onwards. It's an extraordinary house with an extensive collection of artwork and artefacts from the last 450 years of us having the house.

There's an antique leather-topped writing desk and on it was what I, as a kid, thought was a fat, green letter opener. That's really bad but I was a kid living in England and we'd never been to New Zealand. It was on a writing desk sitting alongside some letter openers so we presumed it was something to do with that.

It's a beautiful mere, probably 25cm long and 8cm wide, it's fat, but it had its place on another antique that had been in the same place for 150 years. It isn't the only artefact but it's the only one, I'd say, that's obviously not European. It clearly stood out as a one-off piece among the European collection.

When a Māori friend of mine came to stay, probably 20 years ago, he said, "Hold on a minute, that mere that's sitting there, what's that?" I said, "I don't know," and he said, "That's an incredible piece of pounamu. It's hand-carved and, looking at the style of carving, it's really, really old. You should find out the history of it so you can treat it with the respect it deserves."

He could see it was looked after well, but he took it and blessed it in the rivers in the area and did some karakia over it.

I thought, "You're right. I should find out about it." I did some investigating and went right back and found that George Robert Charles Herbert, the 13th Earl of Pembroke, one of my ancestors, and his friend Dr Charles Kingsley had been to New Zealand and written a book.

It's called South Sea Bubbles by the Earl and the Doctor. I went on the internet and sourced a few copies and bought them. It's a bloody good read.

'South Sea Bubbles by the Earl and the Doctor' written by Emma's ancestor the Earl of Pembroke.

This copy I've got here is from 1872. It's great. It's just them going round the Pacific Islands writing a chapter on each of the islands; Bora Bora, Samoa, Rarotonga ... there's one chapter called "Shipwrecked" and another right at the end called "Missionaries". Herbert didn't like the missionaries very much or what they were trying to do.

I bought four or five copies about 15 years ago and gave them to members of my family. I did lend one to a guy who had a tourist boat business in Mt Maunganui, an old dude who did whale watching or something, and I never saw it again. I can't find any more online now but there is a new print version reprinted in paperback, which is quite cool.

I've been coming to New Zealand since I was about 23, which was 30 years ago, and felt a connection. I bought some land at the very top of Coromandel in my early 20s and that kept pulling me back every year. It was hugely significant for me.

A lot of people say when they come here they feel a connection and want to stay but it was lovely for me to find out why I felt this connection. I had this book, and thought, "This is what it is; my spiritual and ancestral tie to this explorer and adventurer who came over from the UK all that time ago, had this adventure and wrote a published book which I now have in my hand." It feels really good to have that link.

I can't trace the story of the mere but there was a book about a Māori chief that my ancestor wrote the foreward for. So he must have spent a lot of time here making connections. I'm assuming that he was gifted this mere but I haven't found direct names or links or who he was gifted it by. I feel a real reverence for it. It's an alive piece of stone. I have a reverence for it and a love for it.

I felt a bit guilty - I'm not sure if that's the right word - but I felt that everything my friend said was right. Even though we did have it in a place of respect, we didn't know the story of it. I felt very strongly that it was my responsibility to give it the honour it deserved as an artefact and a gift. To give it its spirit back. It was strongly impressed upon me by my friend to do that. To make that effort. And then when I found the book I felt a really deep connection to my ancestor as well. I wish that I could've met him and found out the rest of the story. But I feel like I've done my duty, in a way.

I did find out that my ancestor bought the boat in Auckland and set off from there with a small crew. I had an idea that it'd be really nice to trace his footsteps and do his journey, but I'm not much of a boatie.

* As told to Karl Puschmann.

Emma Vickers is the performance director for Splore, the three-day music and arts festival, held at Tāpapakanga Regional Park just outside Auckland, on February 25-27.