The journey home

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON / IMAGERY: ROB SUISTED

The career of archaeologist Amber Aranui has been defined by her work in the repatriation of ancestral remains to their people

Dr Amber Aranui admits she often felt anger in her early days of working as a repatriation researcher for Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. “I’m an emotional person,” she explains, laughing now as we sit across from each other in a quiet meeting room. “And what I read in the archives in those first few years often made me really angry.”

Amber, who is of Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Pākehā descent, joined through the Te Papa Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme as a researcher in 2008. The role followed a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and religious studies, a master’s in archaeology and a couple of years of hands-on field work and report writing for the Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai and OPUS International Consultants.

From day one, she loved working at New Zealand’s national museum in Wellington. Hours were spent trying to find and bring home kōiwi tupuna and toi moko tightly held in overseas museums, private collections and institutions.

“I first encountered kōiwi as a master’s student working under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey Irwin – the father of maritime navigational archaeological theory –in the Eastern Bay of Plenty,” says Amber, who grew up in Wellington’s Hutt Valley.

“Excavations of a wetland site known as Kōhika gave me the chance to study fibre materials used by Māori back in the 1700s, as well as two ancestors reburied there in the years following a massive flood event and abandonment of the village. It was an incredible experience. Working with iwi and learning the tikanga and protocols involved in interacting with the remains of their tūpuna felt very meaningful.”

But in her new role she was shocked to encounter blatant disrespect for ancestral remains and the indigenous communities they represented.

“It was right there in black and white in so much of the archival material I read through.”

Letters penned by Frederick Meinertzhagen, for example, showed that the Hawke’s Bay farmer had deliberately gone behind the backs of local Waimarama iwi to steal kōiwi for the British Museum following his emigration to New Zealand in 1866. Kōiwi were eventually returned to Waimarama in 2013 through the Te Papa repatriation programme.

A separate letter from the 1890s, written by the then director of the Australian Museum, lamented the end of Aboriginal hunting for the purpose of supplying human specimens to institutions such as New Zealand’s Colonial Museum.

“The things I read disgusted me,” recalls Amber. “I just couldn’t believe it. I felt like the average person had no idea what had gone on in our museums and public institutions. Eventually, I realised I couldn’t change the past. I could only help make things right by bringing kōiwi home and sending them back to their people.”

Amber says the archival material gave her grim insights into why thousands of Māori remains came to be traded, stolen and dispersed around the globe, particularly during the late 19th century.

“Darwinism was at its peak. Natural history hobbyists like Meinertzhagen and institutions like museums were excited to get their hands on the body parts of indigenous people for their collections, and oftentimes didn’t question how those human remains had come into their possession.

“The goal was to collect and study them to prove Darwin’s theory of human evolution, in which Europeans considered themselves the most evolved species and believed all others were savages.”

Centuries later, the justification for holding on to ancestral remains continues to favour Western ideas over indigenous ones in some places, says Amber.

The domestic repatriation of more than 66 Rangitāne o Wairau ancestors from Canterbury Museum and Te Papa to Wairau Bar in 2016 is a case in point.

“Yes, those remains were essentially the holy grail of New Zealand archaeology; evidence of our first people. But I think it took three or four generations of fighting by the same family to get those ancestors returned and reburied.

“Their request was finally honoured as part of their Treaty settlement. Even so, Canterbury Museum still chose to defend its right to dig up those remains for future scientific study. At Te Papa, we said we want no such right; they’re 100 percent yours.”

Amber, now a Curator Mātauranga Māori at Te Papa, says the 13 years she spent in the repatriation team have come to define her career. In 2013, while in the team, she joined the Australian National University’s Return, Reconcile, Renew project to network with other repatriation experts around the world and co-author academic texts on repatriation.

Project members hope to launch an international research centre aimed at further helping indigenous communities to repatriate ancestral remains.

It’s an exciting milestone, says Amber, who continues to be involved in the project and frequently lectures about New Zealand’s repatriation work at home and overseas.

In 2014 Amber worked alongside Makere Rika-Heke, Director Kaiwhakahaere Tautiaki Wāhi Taonga at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga , and Gerard O’Regan, Tūhura Otago Museum’s Curator Māori and Pouhere Kaupapa Māori, to set up the New Zealand Archaeology Association’s Kaihura Māori Advisory Group, to focus, in part, on strengthening the profession’s understanding of repatriation.

Te Ara Taonga, an inter-agency group that includes Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and was set up to help iwi access taonga held by government agencies, followed.

In 2018 Amber completed a PhD in Māori Studies at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, publishing a thesis on the repatriation of Māori and Moriori remains and the ethical issues associated with the scientific study and treatment of the dead.

As a board member of Museums Aotearoa for the past two years, she has helped to develop a repatriation policy for New Zealand museums and set up the New Zealand Repatriation Research Network for museum staff working in repatriation research.

In February Amber was called on to help to recover and rebury kōiwi washed out of an urupā in Omahu by Cyclone Gabrielle. Makere Rika-Heke was also there.

“Amber’s made a huge contribution to the repatriation field in New Zealand and internationally,” says Makere.

“In a hands-on way – like we saw in Hawke’s Bay recently – and, just as importantly, she’s challenged the archaeology, heritage and museology communities to consider the ethics of storing and managing kōiwi more deeply than we have before. She’s brought the voice of iwi to the fore and, in doing so, is helping many of us to confront the past.”

Amber says she had no idea what she wanted to do as a kid growing up or even during her first few years at university as a young mum of two. It was the Māori Studies paper by Professor Peter Adds called ‘The Peopling of Polynesia’ that set her on the path to archaeology.

“I realised archaeology would help me learn about myself and the history of Aotearoa through my own eyes.”

Right now, she’s putting her knowledge and skills to use by helping her aunty, Rose Mohi, to track down ancestral taonga and bring them home to Heretaunga. For decades Rose has searched the world for more than 60 carved wharenui panels commissioned by her great-grandfather, the late Ngāti Kahungunu rangatira and politician Karaitiana Takamoana.

“We think we’ve found them all,” says Amber. “So we’re now in the final stages of writing up reports and making our case to the 15 or so museums in New Zealand and overseas that have them in their care.”

There are museums that will be open to returning the taonga, believes Amber, while others will likely say no.

“What I’ve learned in this game is that things take time; no doesn’t mean no. It just means not right now.” kōiwi tupuna: ancestral remains rangatira: chief taonga: treasures tikanga: cultural protocol toi moko: preserved tattooed heads tūpuna: ancestors urupā: cemetery wharenui: meeting house

To hear more from Amber, listen to episode four of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga podcast Aotearoa Unearthed.