Museum Toilers

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 678, 1 June 1929, Page 16

Museum Toilers

COMPLETING HUGE TASK

Unique Display For Exhibits

UNDER the supervision of the curator, Mr. Gilbert Archey, immense progress has been made with preparations for the display of specimens in Auckland’s War Memorial Museum.

A small, keen staff of experts is engrossed in the heavy task of fitting the huge, white building for the opening, which is expected to take place before the end of the year.

In the present stage of ordered disorder, the rapid development of the Maori section is a striking feature. Grotesque, carved faces peer steadily ahead into the airy halls and corridors, and the huge Maori house, Hotunui, presented by the NgatiMaru tribe, of Thames, stands aloof in a special division of the wall of the main hall.

The whare, -when thoroughly reconstructed, will be one of the great attractions of the museum. It is not many years since laughing Maori people sheltered beneath its rafters and reeds, and it has all the spirit of New Zealand's native race. Intensive work has been centred on the whare.

Working steadily to repair damaged wall panels is Tuhapi, an expert Maori. His deft fingers are adjusting and reconditioning the fibre and flax bindings of the panels. The original patterns have to be traced out carefully and Tuhapi has been largely responsible for the repairs that have been made so far. Nearly half the panels have been reconstructed. GRINNING CARVINGS Grinning carved posts and tukutuku wall-panels for Hotunui stood stark in the quiet of the vast building today. They have all been repaired and cleaned. Hotunui's framework is nearly ready to take the thatching and the filling w r ork. The tremendous painted rafters had to have their patterns traced before the paint could be removed for preservative work. Much of the repainting and retracing of the patterns has been done. Flanking Hotonui in the Maori hall are two large patakas—native storehouses. Valuable carvings are to be fitted to these. Its length flung before the Maori whare, Te Toki-a-Tapari, the splendid war canoe, lies almost hidden by bundles of reeds, drying before they are used for thatching work. Toki-a-Tapari, as one of the museum’s great possessions, has received close attention from those engaged in making the museum in the best possible condition. Mr. Archey explained that very little could be done up to the present in arranging actual displays. Specimens were still being taken from their packing cases. In two halls are foreign ethnological and geological exhibits scattered in profusion for the critical eye of the examiner, and canoes and work representative of the Polynesian and Melanesian races. Mr. Cyril W. Firth is busily occupied in selecting specimens for display. The natural history section has received many additions, and the immense amount

of space available in the new build ing will permit of more comprehensive displays. PAINTINGS AND FOSSILS

Detailed work has been accomplished by Mr. A. W. B. Powell in illustrating, by paintings and sketches, the changes of the earth through the ages. The palaeozoic, mesozoic, cainozoic and anthropozoic periods all have their illustrations, which serve to indicate the changes in strata. Fossils and specimens representative of the periods will be arranged with the sketches. This excellent display will be on the T -st floor.

The larger animals already stand in their cases—they were placed in position immediately for preservation. Along the rear corridor of the first floor, display cases of shells are being arranged. In the fish section hall, casts have been secured of hammerhead and thresher sharks and of a swordfish. Mr. L. T. Griffin .is arranging the section and a feature will be made of a group of big game fish from Northern waters. CLOAKED MOAS

Mr. R. A. Falla has undertaken the arrangement of the New Zealand bird section and an indication of the work is given by the fact that nearly 900 birds have to be reconditioned, remounted and relabelled. Massive moas now stand in the hall, grotesquely swathed in prosaic brown paper.

From the exhibition of models of British ships, from the Great Harry to Nelson's Victory, the visitor will go to the museum’s top floor. It is the war memorial. The light of the sun, gilding Ralgitoto, as it broods over Auckland, floods the airy memorand chamber. It will lighten cold, but impressive memorial slabs. Auckland will realise the mean-

ing of this top hall, serene above the city. MONTHS OF WORK

So Mr. Archey and his assistants are facing months of heavy work. When Tuhapi has repaired the last reed strand, rotted by Maori hlnau dye, and when the exhibits show to full advantage in the excellent lighting, Auckland’s Museum will have scarcely a peer 111 Australia or New Zealand. For the genuine work of preparation, for its unrivalled outlook, and for its glistening white architecture, it will stand alone. A far cry, this, from the days when colonists, visioning a future, laid th foundations of an institution with an expanding reputation. The interest of such men as Sir George Grey, Mr. Justice Gillies and Sir John Logan Campbell in giving Auckland a proud heritage, and tho sacrifices of New Zealand’s soldiers have their true expression now. There is promise and hope in the confidence of the Corinthian columns flung toward the sky.