Te Herekiekie Herewini
Aotearoa - New Zealand
Tēnā koe (greetings) my name is Te Herekiekie Haerehuka Herewini, and I am of Māori ancestry. I have been working at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) since October 2007, and it is a privilege and honour to ensure our Māori and Moriori ancestors are repatriated from around the world with respect and dignity.
This work helps to heal and reconcile the dark period in Aotearoa New Zealand history associated with the colonisation of the country by the British Crown, and where colonial museums were active in the looting, collection and trade of Māori and Moriori ancestral remains and their burial items.
Doing Research
c. 1905 / Blumenbach Skull Collection
As head of the Restitution Department at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, I have experience of transcribing the handwriting of collectors and traders. In the case of Göttingen, however, it was the first time I had done a comparative analysis of handwriting to find the collector.
Among the known dealers with human remains from New Zealand were Andreas Reischek (1845- 1902), Julius von Haast (1822-1887), Felix von Luschan (1854-1924), Henry Travers (1844-1928), and Sir James Hector (1834-1907). I sourced examples of their handwriting and through comparative analysis I came to the conclusion that the handwriting belonged to Sir James Hector, the director of the Colonial Museum in Wellington, New Zealand, from 1865 to 1903. Hector is a known collector and trader of New Zealand fauna and flora, which also included Māori and Moriori ancestral remains. He is recorded as sending Māori ancestral remains to both Austria and Germany.
I based my research methodology on the Māori cultural element known as whakapapa, which is a philosophy that all elements in the world have a genealogy or are connected by a series of events. Therefore, I knew the inscriptions did not exist in isolation, but were connected by whakapapa to a trader.
Te Herekiekie Herewini
This invoice from the company Umlauff to the Völkerkundemuseum in Hamburg was important for my research in Göttingen, because it connects and confirms the trade with Moriori and Māori ancestors with the Hamburg museum. These ancestors were then transferred to the University of Göttingen.
It is a very sad part of colonial history that the remains of indigenous people were commodified and commercialized. The redeeming factor is that through the repatriation process, these ancestors have returned home with dignity and respect. These ancestors have whakapapa,
and it is their culturally and spiritually connection to their living descendants that is our focus, and the enduring connection that facilitates their return to their communities where they will be respected, cared for, and offered a place of eternal rest.
Te Herekiekie Herewini
Invoice from the Hamburg company Umlauff, which specialized in the trade with ethnogafica and human remains, to the then Völkerkundemuseum Hamburg for ancestral remains of the Māori and Moriori
J. F. G. Umlauff / 1907 / Museum am Rothenbaum Hamburg, MARKK-Archiv I 1195
Giving Context
The acquisition contexts of the human remains of 28 individuals from Aotearoa / New Zealand stored in Göttingen vary. One of the four Maori ancestors in the Blumenbach Collection were stolen by the Austrian collector Andreas Reischek in Taiharuru in Northland in 1883 and came via Vienna in 1930. The other three Maori ancestors are associated with Sir James Hector, the director of the Colonial Museum in Wellington from 1865 to the early 1900s. From the Chatham Islands came the human remains of 22 Moriori Ancestors, which were acquired by the collector Henry Travers in 1906 and sold to the Hamburg company Umlauff. The company, which specialised in the trade of ethnographica, naturalia and human remains, sold the skulls to the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg in 1907. Finally, two skulls associated with the Anthropological Department can be traced back to the anatomist and later director of the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology Georg Thilenius. Between 1897 and 1899, Thilenius undertook a research trip to the colony of New Zealand, which was under British rule at the time, and stole several skulls from a burial cave in the Waitakere Mountains near Auckland. In June 2023, all 28 ancestral human remains were returned to New Zealand.
