Maori artefacts from the north side of Raglan Harbour are on now display at Raglan Museum. On Saturday morning 17th October, the Museum Society opened its Te Horea – the Bird Family Collection exhibition. Following a dawn powhiri, the exhibition was formally opened at 10am.
Horea is the area just across the harbour from the Raglan township, often referred to as Bird Bay. Keith Bird farmed Horea from the mid-1940s. Keith and his family collected the taonga from the property. The collection is significant because of the age of the many artefacts and in being one of the largest collected in New Zealand by one family from a small localised area. Some of the sites are amongst the earliest known for the west coast between Manukau Harbour and Mokau dating back to before 1250 when moas were last seen in the area.
The opening began with a karanga followed by over 100 people moving into the museum to the exhibition area. Kaumatua Sean Ellinson then did a blessing. Museum President Rodger Gallagher then welcomed guests and explained the importance of the exhibition and how it came about. He quoted well-known archaeologist Neville Ritchie who described the Bird Collection as, “Provenanced as it is to Horea, it provides a special insight into the Maori activity in that area in the past, their lifeways, and exploitation of local and more distant resources.”
He went on to cover how in 2012 the Bird family deposited the collection of over 2000 items in Raglan Museum as a long-term loan. And how since then Raglan & District Museum Society volunteers and its consultants have been working with Keith Bird’s children and the Ngati Tahinga iwi on putting the collection on display.
Lynette Williams was the lead consultant and curator for the exhibition assisted by Dean Cato, a 3D designer from Design Strategies. Anderson Design turned the design concepts into three-dimensional reality.
Museum President Rodger Gallagher, ended by saying, “The result is a superb exhibition which displays this collection beautifully and tells its story well.”
Kaumatua Russell Riki then spoke about the exhibition saying the Maori way of preserving taonga was to bury them. As a father of part Pakeha and part Maori children he had learnt to understand that the Pakeha way of preserving taonga in museums was also a good way. Earlier Rusty Bird had said that he was sure that having the taonga on display would allow young Maori to understand their roots and what there ancestors had done to live and thrive around Whaingaroa
Clint Baddeley then spoke on behalf of the Waikato District Council saying this exhibition was what Sunnah Thompson and Wally Crawford, two no longer with us, had worked for.
The oldest of Keith Bird’s children, Bev Hooper then declared the exhibition open. After visitors had a first look at the exhibition morning tea was served in the Fire Station social room.
The exhibition is open daily in the Raglan Museum, 15 Wainui Rd, Raglan. It was made possible with funding from the Lottery Grants Board, Trust Waikato, the Stewart Bequest and Waikato District Council.
Is there a list of the exhibits? Must have been a good celebration afterwards to create those typos! Wainui not Wallis?
Perhaps the fruit cake at morning tea was intoxicating. The exhibits are all listed in the main museum catalogue. Ask Karyn and she will bring the list up for you.