Tuhinga18Final 28/5/07 10:22 AM Page 1 Tuhinga 18: 1–10 Copyright © Te Papa Museum of New Zealand (2007) The trouble about your combs arose this way…Changing interpretations of the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 Moira White Otago Museum, PO Box 6202, Dunedin, New Zealand ([email protected]) ABSTRACT: The Maori Antiquities Act 1908 regulated the export of Mäori artefacts from New Zealand between 1908 and 1962. The legislation allowed the Minister of Internal Affairs to approve the inclusion of Mäori artefacts as part of exchange arrange- ments between New Zealand and overseas museums. Government officials were advised in such matters by staff of the then Dominion Museum. An examination of a number of applications to export exchange material under the Act during the 1920s reveals changes in the interpretation of the Act by government and museum individuals. KEYWORDS: Maori Antiquities Act 1908, antiquities legislation, exchanges, museum conference, duplicates, Dominion Museum, Otago Museum, H.D. Skinner Introduction Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (1995). The Maori Antiquities Act 1908 regulated the export of In the 1920s, when the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 was Mäori artefacts from New Zealand between 1908 and still in force, three initial applications by the Otago 1962. The legislation authorised the Minister of Internal Museum to export exchange material were refused by Affairs to approve requests to export Mäori artefacts under the Minister of Internal Affairs. In the course of resolving certain circumstances, which included exchange arrange- the issues that were raised, the first New Zealand confer- ments between New Zealand and overseas museums. ence of museum professionals was held. This paper In 1962 the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 was repealed by examines the exchanges in question and considers the the Historic Articles Act. This was in turn replaced by the changing interpretation of the antiquities legislation that Antiquities Act 1975, in which ownership of newly discov- they mark. ered Mäori artefacts became the property of the Crown. The current legislation, the Protected Objects Act 1975, was passed in 2006. This revoked the previous definitions Legislation and key players of antiquities, introduced the term ‘taonga tüturu’1 and created nine categories of protected New Zealand objects, Mäori antiquities legislation and its terms will allow New Zealand’s participation in In October 1901, the New Zealand Parliament passed ‘An the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting Act to prevent the Removal from the Colony of Maori and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Antiquities’. Discussion prior to the passing of the Act bal- Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) and UNIDROIT anced the desire to retain artefacts in New Zealand with Tuhinga18Final 28/5/07 10:22 AM Page 2 2 Tuhinga, Number 18 (2007) potential inconvenience to tourists, the rights of dealers in specimens’. The 1901 Act had excluded ‘private collections artefacts to earn a living, and possible detrimental effects not intended for sale’ from the definition, but the 1908 on the trade in contemporary carvings (White 2003). The Act removed this. aims of the Act were linked with the idea of building a Regulations under the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 national museum to house the material that would be provided for the process for exporting artefacts. The party purchased by the government under the terms of the Act. wishing to export material wrote to the Minister of The 1901 Act was amended in 1904. When introduc- Internal Affairs requesting permission to do so, describing ing the Maori Antiquities Act Amendment Bill, the Hon. the material in question. If the application was successful, Sir J.G. Ward (then Colonial Secretary) explained that the party received a ‘Warrant to Export’ that gave the provision for imposing a fine as a deterrent penalty, absent consent of the minister. from the 1901 Act, was necessary to help prevent the export of antiquities (New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Dominion Museum 1904: 548). He added that it was desirable that provision The Colonial Museum in Wellington became known as be made for securing copies of carvings that the Crown the Dominion Museum in 1907 and then, under a 1972 was offered but chose not to purchase.2 The Amendment act of Parliament, as the National Museum. The National also allowed forfeiture to the Crown of artefacts exported Museum existed until Te Papa Tongarewa was established contrary to the provisions of the Act. as a Crown entity under the Museum of New Zealand Te The type of material to which it was anticipated the Papa Tongarewa Act 1992. legislation would apply, as indicated in the Parliamentary These successive institutions have all been funded from, debates, was unchanged. The Hon. Mr Carncross (Taranaki) and had a special relationship with, central government. In said: the time the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 was in force, the Dominion Museum played an advisory role when applica- The Hon. Mr. George referred to people coming here and taking away Maori charms on their watch-chains, tions to export Mäori artefacts from New Zealand were and so were unwittingly offending against the law. I do received by the Department of Internal Affairs. not think this law is made for the restriction of that sort of thing, but merely for the protection of large and Otago Museum notable curios, as, for instance, the Maori house which Exchanges offered opportunities to obtain material that was sold the other day, and which is the sort of thing would not normally have come on the market in New which should be kept in the colony, if possible. (New Zealand, and were a not uncommon way for museums Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1904: 711) (and other collectors) with limited purchasing funds to The Hon. Mr Jenkinson (Canterbury) added: acquire new material. In the early 1920s, W. Benham, the Curator of the Otago Museum, wrote, ‘The collections in I do not fear the trouble that some speakers have indi- cated regarding the small antiquities, such as heitikis, et the Museum have been formed almost entirely by the gifts cetera, because the Bill will not deal with them. The from individuals and by exchanges with museums, in principal Act, I think, leaves that matter to the discretion return for the natural products of New Zealand’ (Benham of the Colonial Secretary…and there is no fear of any 1922: 3). Colonial Secretary being so foolish as to prohibit the In 1919, H.D. Skinner was appointed Assistant exportation of small things. He will only deal with larger Curator of the Otago Museum and given responsibility for things, and that is all that the Bill is brought in for. (New its ethnological collections. His was the first position for Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1904: 712) an individual with expertise in this area at the Museum, Four years later, the 1901 and 1904 acts were consolidated and the collecting emphasis up to this time had been pri- in the Maori Antiquities Act 1908. The term ‘Maori marily zoological. Skinner’s joint appointment as Assistant antiquities’ was defined as including ‘Maori relics, articles Curator at the Museum and Lecturer in Anthropology manufactured with ancient Maori tools and according to at the University of Otago led to extensive use of the Maori methods, and all articles or things of historical or Museum collections in teaching the university course. scientific value or interest or relating to New Zealand, but Material was sought both to build up the Pacific collec- does not include any botanical or mineral collections or tions and for teaching purposes, and some of this was Tuhinga18Final 28/5/07 10:22 AM Page 3 Changing interpretations of the Maori Antiquities Act 1908 3 obtained by exchanges with overseas individuals and insti- and the exchange proceeded. In May 1922, the Under- tutions. While Benham had, in the main, exchanged items Secretary wrote: of zoological interest, Skinner exchanged ethnographic I have pointed out to the Minister that the leading material – usually Mäori artefacts. Some of Skinner’s Museums in New Zealand are fully stocked with Maori exchanges, however, aimed at returning to New Zealand weapons, and the majority of such articles which it is Mäori artefacts held overseas. desired to export have faults or flaws and are useless for Museum purposes. The Hon. Minister has approved a recommendation Otago Museum application in that permission should be granted to export in cases where the article is of no use for Museum purposes. 1922 (J. Hislop to J.A. Thomson, 12 May 1922, Te Papa In 1920, following an application by a Mr Burnett of Nelson Archives) to export a ‘small Maori axe’, the Minister of Internal ‘Museum purposes’ at this time and in this context presum- Affairs, Sir Francis Bell, issued a directive to his depart- ably means for display, although the desirability of localised ment that ‘in future I think the licence to export genuine material enabling scientific study was acknowledged. Maori weapons should be invariably refused whether the museum has a supply or not’ (J. Hislop to J.A. Thomson,3 24 February 1920, Te Papa Archives MU1 Box 20).4 The impetus behind Bell’s directive is not clear, as Otago Museum application in the Dominion Museum had not advised the Minister 1926 that the axe (more probably an adze) should be barred from export. Elsdon Best had described it as ‘a genuine In May 1926, the Otago Museum asked for permission to old Maori artifact of an average form and finish, but not export for exchange with the English collector Harry a rare object’. He also noted: ‘The museum has a large Beasley one wooden comb, three bone tattooing chisels, number of such implements’ (J.