TAONGA: A whalebone wahaika created by Te Atiawa carver Jacob Heberley that once belonged to Tamahau Mahupuku and was discovered at the UCLA Fowler Museum in Los Angeles. PHOTOS SUPPLIED
TAONGA: A whalebone wahaika created by Te Atiawa carver Jacob Heberley that once belonged to Tamahau Mahupuku and was discovered at the UCLA Fowler Museum in Los Angeles. PHOTOS SUPPLIED
Maori artefacts with links to Wairarapa have been unearthed in museums as far away as Chicago and Los Angeles as part of an inventory project undertaken for regional iwi.
Rongomaiaia Te Whaiti, Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa artist and researcher, said she had discovered about 2500 taonga, or treasures, at museums in New Zealand and overseas with a provenance to an area stretching from Cape Palliser toNorsewood.
The artefacts were identified during seven months of research for the Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tamaki Nui a Rua Trust, she said, and the inventory project was ongoing.
Her work last year had also revealed a group of three related and significant taonga that were in collections abroad. The trust was planning to repatriate the artefacts, she said.
Each of the three artefacts had been carved by Te Atiawa carver Jacob Heberley, who for a time had lived in Greytown during the late 19th century, Ms Te Whaiti said.
Heberley was not widely known as a tribal carver but had used novel materials, like celluloid, in a distinctive self-taught style. He also created non-functional replicas and models of more traditional artefacts and innovative items such as walking sticks, containers and picture frames.
His skill and the prominence of his work in official circles, according to Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, had helped create unique symbols for the young nation and "fulfilled its most significant role in the historical context of New Zealand as a developing nation striving to find a distinctive identity".
Ms Te Whaiti said one of the Heberley-carved artefacts she discovered was a wahaika, or hand club, held in the UCLA Fowler Museum in Los Angeles. The weapon had originally belonged to Tamahau Mahupuku, who was pivotal to the Maori Parliament at Papawai Marae near Greytown and the first ever Maori language newspaper, Te Puke ki Hikurangi, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tamahau died in 1904 and his widow gave the whalebone weapon to Lord Ranfurly, the Governor General of New Zealand. Sir Henry Welcome acquired the wahaika at an auction in Ireland in 1922 and in 1965 gave it to the Fowler Museum, Ms Te Whaiti found.
"It's in a style that is very unique to Heberley and we found another over in the Field Museum in Chicago. They probably thought it was whalebone but it is in fact made from celluloid, which is really cool and a very early use of that material.
A similar celluloid taonga carved by Heberley and linked to Wairarapa was also discovered in a collection in New Zealand, she said.
Each of the three taonga were of similar dimensions and styles and included elaborate carvings and a manaia, or bird-like form, with a ball inside the beak.
CELLULOID: A celluloid wahaika with links to Wairarapa by Te Atiawa carver Jacob Heberley. The club was today on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. PHOTOS/SUPPLIED
The ball was believed to represent a whatu, or stone, in reference to a tradition at the renowned Te Poho-o-Hinepae whare wananga in Wairarapa, where students would hold a stone in their mouths for the duration of the lesson. The ball and beak feature was unique to the group of artefacts, Ms Te Whaiti said.
"We are in discussions at the moment to repatriate the taonga, but it is very early stages. They (the museums and private collector) weren't aware of my research, so we're treading carefully at the moment."
Ms Te Whaiti said her work and experience on the inventory project had been a significant influence for her as a Ngati Kahungunu artist.
"The project has had a major impact on me in many ways, as an artist and in terms as myself as Ngati Kahungunu," she said.
"The research could have been done by somebody in the museum field but because of my background as a Maori artist and someone from the area, who has a personal relationship to those taonga it really is all about our ancestors and will be the kaupapa of my next body of work."
