Info on the web about Moko Mokai April 7th, 2000 Aussie Museum
To Return Maori Heads WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - An
Australian museum has agreed to return five tattooed and
preserved Maori heads to New Zealand, a spokesman said Thursday.
The return of the heads from the South Australian Museum in
Adelaide later this month marks another milestone in an ongoing
campaign to repatriate all the tattooed heads of Maori from
museums and galleries round the world. Maori, the original
inhabitants of New Zealand, preserved the heads of their dead
through a drying process and often kept the heads of their loved
ones around the home. The South Australian Museum will hand over
the heads - known as ``moko mokai'' -on long-term loan at a
ceremony on April 17. The heads will be held by Te Papa, the
Museum of New Zealand, in Wellington, where dozens of other
repatriated heads are stored. The largest collection outside New
Zealand, numbering 35 heads, is at New York's American Museum of
Natural History. Moko Mokai Education