When visitors first enter a marae, a Māori meeting house, the first thing they hear is a karanga. For Māori people this call, issued only by women, is a sacred expression of welcome that provides the medium by which the living and dead of the visitors may cross the physical space to unite with the living and dead of the people who belong to the marae.
The kai-karanga (the woman making the karanga) sounds as though she is wailing or performing a stylized lament. It is deeply spiritual, and the responsibility she holds for her entire hapu (subtribe) is expressed through her call.
For Te Herekiekie Haerehuka Herewini, who is head of the Karanga Aotearoa repatriation team at Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand), understanding these kinds of protocol is a crucial part of the responsibility his team has in ensuring the return of looted ancestral remains from across the world, and that they are treated with dignity and respect.
New Zealand/Aotearoa, not unlike other colonized countries, was looted not just of various taonga (treasures), but the remains of hundreds of ancestors. It is estimated that around 3,000 remains have been taken from Aotearoa, and 800 returned since 2003.
It’s now been 20 years since the Aotearoa government, then led by Labour Party Prime Minister Helen Clark, mandated Te Papa Tongarewa to develop Karanga Aotearoa, a formal programme for the repatriation of kōiwi and kōimi tangata (Māori and Moriori skeletal remains).
‘While they are overseas, their spirit is not settled,’ says Herewini, noting that these ancestors are ‘waiting’ to come home. ‘Part of our responsibility is reconnection and allowing the cultural mechanisms we have to let them come home.’
Often the records of who these ancestors were, and where they were taken from, are unclear or nonexistent. Karanga Aotearoa researchers identify where the remains are being held – almost exclusively in museums in Europe and North America – and work backwards, tracing the history of acquisitions as best they can. The process is akin to tracing a supply chain – identifying buyers and sellers until a point of origin is found.
The programme locates ancestors’ remains – whether within Aotearoa or elsewhere in the world, negotiates their return and brings them home to be stored in a (a sacred space for holding the dead). [tribes] around the country and then we start having conversations. Our goal is to return them all to where they came from.’
