Ngāti Kahungunu joins calls for British Museum to return artefacts

Every day, visitors from around the world look at taonga (treasure) Māori in the British Museum.

It's estimated several thousand Māori artefacts are part of the collection, with more than 600 from Waimārama in Hawke's Bay.

Ngāti Kahungunu chairman Bayden Barber wants the items from his iwi to be returned.

"We know who they were. We're direct descendants of those people and, as direct descendants, hey, we're going to put the wero (challenge) out to the King of England and his governments to bring that taonga home."

Barber said Frederick Meinertzhagen leased 35,000 acres in Waimārama in 1868, which was continued by his daughter for over 50 years in total.

He said the iwi believe he was well renowned for being a grave digger.

"We had numerous pā sites on that farm and our burial grounds, so caves, and when our people were buried, when our ancestors were buried, they were buried with all of their taonga.

"It's important because it's the cultural heritage that connects ancestors that you can see behind me back to the whenua (land). They were warriors, they were high chiefs and chieftainesses and with that stature they held lots of taonga."

Barber said years ago the issue was raised with the museum through Te Papa with short term loans on the table.

"But from our point of view, it doesn't belong to them, it belongs to us, it belongs to our ancestors, it belongs to our iwi, it belongs to our hapū and we want them back."

"That collection in the British Museum is the largest Māori collection outside New Zealand," Barber said.

The British Museum declined to be interviewed, but provided a statement from a spokesperson which didn't address the request directly.

'We understand the significance of discussions around the return of taonga, and we would welcome the opportunity to speak with representatives of Ngāti Kahungunu to discuss the collection and explore opportunities for engagement,' the museum stated.

The museum said it has "warm and long-standing relationships" with groups in New Zealand and regularly works with iwi to provide access to collections so people and taonga can reconnect.

"The British Museum recognises that the objects in its collection hold cultural importance for communities around the world," a spokesperson said.

Barber said the iwi is open to talking about the matter with "the right people" at the museum.

Ancestral remains, known as kōiwi tangata, from Waimārama, were repatriated from the museum in 2008.

Seven toi moko, heads of Māori people, remain in thei museum's collection not on display. Te Papa's request for their return was declined.

The British Museum has been in the spotlight after UK Parliament House of Lords member Paul Boateng called the institution "the largest depository of stolen goods known to man" at a Chatham House event in London.

"It's a charnel house. Literally, quite literally a charnel house of bones and of relics that are sacred to our indigenous people globally and yet where the British Museum has consistently failed to and ignored a dialogue which delivers," he said.

Lord Boateng is of Ghanaian descent and spent most of his childhood there.

"I was brought up in the Gold Coast that became Ghana. My grandfather, my paternal grandfather, can remember the sacking and looting of Kumasi, the capital of the Asante Kingdom.

"The theft of ancient artifacts that are the sacred to the peoples of that part of Ghana, to my tribe.

"The same is true all over the world, in New Zealand, in the Indian subcontinent, in South America."

He's called for a full return of Asante gold regalia which ended up in British museums, with many pieces looted.

Ghana currently has 32 pieces on long-term loan.

Lord Boateng has introduced private member's bills on the wider issue, which have been unsuccessful so far, and continues to ask questions about the rights of indigenous people in UK Parliament.

Lord Boateng is urging countries to call for the British Museum Act 1963 to be repealed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting which will take place from November 1 to November 4 in Antigua and Barbuda.

The Act bans items from being removed from the museum except in very limited circumstances.

"It is essentially a piece of legislation that's based on a sense of racial and cultural superiority. The British Museum should not be retaining the preserved, shrunken heads of Māori ancestors.

"They shouldn't be retaining 600 or more precious artefacts that are sacred to the peoples, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and that are valued by all peoples in New Zealand."

"They belong with their ancestors in their ancestral home."

Most of the Māori items in the British Museum are in storage.

George Nuku, a New Zealand artist living in France, has some of his modern pieces as part of the display on Māori objects.

He's seen taonga in many European institutions and says they're an example of the work of someone that has reached their full potential, a source of inspiration that blocks out other distractions in life for the beholder.

"For better or worse, the museums are... concentrated examples of human endeavour, crammed into these places... of what people did with the one life they got."

Nuku agrees with Ngāti Kahungunu, one of his iwi, that stolen objects should be returned but says creativity is required in face-to- face talks, such as a cultural exchange of items.

"We should be just coming together more and looking about how we can orchestrate and engineer scenarios where everybody wins. That's the challenge."

Nuku said some Māori objects on display in museums around the world are the result of trades between Māori and the British.

"We did that so that we could get in this world and like I said, we did it in two generations and the cost of that agency was that all of those treasures of our forebears were used in exchange in the majority of times, I would say to you, the majority of times."

"We paid dearly to be in the game and I think that we should not waste one moment of time or energy, we should make good on those payments made."