Maori jewellery in Museum sale

By BRIDGET CARTER

Mysterious items that tell the story of New Zealand's past will be auctioned next month following the closure of the Wagener Museum in the Far North in June.

Maori jewellery and weaponry dating back to the moa-hunting days are among the 50,000 items up for sale.

A gun, understood to have been used by a Texas Confederated Army officer during the Civil War, had generated interest from the United States, said Hamish Coney, the general manager from Webb's Auctions, which is selling the items for the museum.

Auckland Museum's head of collection management, Oliver Stead, said many of the items were from the 14th-century Maori settlement at Houhora, where the museum was based.

The items had links to Polynesia and provided clues as to where Maori people might have come from.

Mr Coney said other items were linked to moa-hunters, whalers and kauri gum-diggers.

One of the more precious artefacts is a Colt Dragoon percussion revolver thought to have been owned by a Texas ranger. It probably came to New Zealand during the gold-rush era.

The colonies were "fluid sorts of things" in the 19th century, he said.

Mr Coney favoured the games, the beautiful slot-machines and the gramophones in the collection.



He said the chamber pots were an incredible story in themselves.

One of the most valued items from Maori history was probably a stone adze and mallet used for carving. Another was a rare amulet from moa-hunter culture.

As for the Colt revolver, Mr Coney said if auction organisers could confirm that it was genuine, then it would probably sell for "serious money".

"They are so rare and US Civil War military history is enormously collected in the United States."

The most important items, which are up for sale in the first auction at Auckland on October 20, are expected to sell for about $25,000.

Other artefacts would be auctioned later that week in Auckland and at the final auction at the old museum site in November.

Mr Stead said Auckland Museum probably could not afford to buy the more prized items, but legislation required it to register artefacts, including the Maori treasures, because permission was needed to sell them or take them overseas.