Photographed on the 28th of December, 2008 by 29 year old Nickmard Khoey of Auckland, this embalmed Mãori head is displayed in the Oceania rooms of the Royal Museum for Art and History at Brussels' Cinquantenaire Museum.
Mr Khoey writes,
For the sake of the historical record it should probably be noted that the early 19th century Mãori did a roaring trade in preserved heads for guns.
Mr Khoey writes,
Enbalmed (sic) and shrunken head of a 19th century Maori warrior. Maori people are the indigenous people of New Zealand (where I was born/raised).
This head was on display in a musuem in Brussels I visited but can't remember the name of it. I believe it is part of a French collection that is was on loan for a pacific (sic) orientated exhibiton.
The tattoo on the warriors face is called moko or toi moko and is still practised by the Maori people in New Zealand today. However, very few on this kind of scale.
These heads are sacred and need to retruned (sic) to New Zealand.
For the sake of the historical record it should probably be noted that the early 19th century Mãori did a roaring trade in preserved heads for guns.
The only culture believed to have farmed its own species for fresh meat, they would tattoo the heads of slaves to give them a chiefly appearance. After removal, the heads would be given an antique patina using juice derived from the Konini tree (the world's largest Fuschia).
The guns thus acquired perpetuated a vicious circle that was only broken by extensive European settlement.
The guns thus acquired perpetuated a vicious circle that was only broken by extensive European settlement.
That the often repeated allegation these heads are sacred and therefore need to be returned to New Zealand is, in our unfashionable opinion, little more than ethnocentric hypocrisy.
Photo Credits
Top: a 2008 photograph by Nickmard Khoey of Auckland.
Bottom: Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with his collection of Maori heads, an illustration from Medicine Man: The Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome, British Museum Press, 2003.
Photo Credits
Top: a 2008 photograph by Nickmard Khoey of Auckland.
Bottom: Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with his collection of Maori heads, an illustration from Medicine Man: The Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome, British Museum Press, 2003.
6 comments:
While hesitant to accord "sacredness" to preserved heads, I do think that respect for human dignity and respect for family descendants or iwi interests is justification enough to repatriate remains to those who may care deeply about how their ancestors remains have been misappropriated.
That Maori may have exploited Maori in this ghoulish trade does not severe the chain of moral responsibility of those who ultimately have stewardship of these remains. If anything, it magnifies their moral responsibility because those rendered powerless have been subjected to such violations of basic human dignity as life itself.
Call me old fashioned, but I would take some offence at great-great grandfather's head being exhibited as part of some 19th century freak show which is the thinly cloaked veneer called the 19th century museum. This would be especially so if he were the victim of slavery, grave robbery, or unlawful killing, or otherwise demonstrable case where his consent was clearly not given & others gained by his misfortune. If great-great grandmother had sold or given his head away, then maybe the old bugger deserved it.
That museums persist in this exploitation in the early 21st century is outrageous unless some clear scientific purpose is served by study of the remains. Here, since it apparently is only for public display, it seems to merely perpetuate the freak show of the circus.
Perhaps the Belgians could be prevailed upon to supply some preserved heads of their recently deceased to display at Te Papa and marae around the country. I'd wager that they - and their pakeha contemporaries in NZ - would be rather reluctant to oblige. Besides, their heads probably wouldn't be accounted to be "freakish" enough.
While hesitant to accord "sacredness" to preserved heads, I do think that respect for human dignity and respect for family descendants or iwi interests is justification enough to repatriate remains to those who may care deeply about how their ancestors remains have been misappropriated.
That Maori may have exploited Maori in this ghoulish trade does not severe the chain of moral responsibility of those who ultimately have stewardship of these remains. If anything, it magnifies their moral responsibility because those rendered powerless have been subjected to such violations of basic human dignity as life itself.
Call me old fashioned, but I would take some offence at great-great grandfather's head being exhibited as part of some 19th century freak show which is the thinly cloaked veneer called the 19th century museum. This would be especially so if he were the victim of slavery, grave robbery, or unlawful killing, or otherwise demonstrable case where his consent was clearly not given & others gained by his misfortune. If great-great grandmother had sold or given his head away, then maybe the old bugger deserved it.
That museums persist in this exploitation in the early 21st century is outrageous unless some clear scientific purpose is served by study of the remains. Here, since it apparently is only for public display, it seems to merely perpetuate the freak show of the circus.
Perhaps the Belgians could be prevailed upon to supply some preserved heads of their recently deceased to display at Te Papa and marae around the country. I'd wager that they - and their pakeha contemporaries in NZ - would be rather reluctant to oblige. Besides, their heads probably wouldn't be accounted to be "freakish" enough.
Putting aside the magical thinking of "sacredness" and the anthropocentric conceits of Humanism, in absolute terms the display of this head should require no more value judgement than the exhibition of the mummified corpse of a Paharoah or the trophy head of a Stag.
But thus instance of what might appear to be not much more than crowd-pulling morbidity is culturally offensive to most New Zealanders, regardless of their ethnicity.
Its immediate removal from display and a public apology to our nation would therefore be appropriate.
There is no reasoning given for the authors comment "in our unfashionable opinion, little more than ethnocentric hypocrisy." I suppose it would be similar to making a comment such as "it is of little surprise comments such as this would come from a Cantabrian."
The Maori win!
Burn the heads
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