Maori Remains Repatriated

News December 5, 2014

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WELLLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND—The remains of more than 100 people, including the skeletal remains of 24 Moriori, 46 Maori, 35 preserved tattooed heads, and two tattooed thigh skins, have been returned to Te Papa. The heads and thigh skins had been collected by a British soldier in the nineteenth century and eventually landed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Pou Temara, chairman of the museum’s Repatriation Advisory Panel, told Radio New Zealand News that the museum will continue to work to identify the remains and return them to their descendants. “I have a deep sense of satisfaction that what we have negotiated in the last ten years has culminated in the biggest repatriation of our work,” he said. 

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