ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE MAORI PEOPLE

Te Ao Hou, June 1960, Page 44

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE MAORI PEOPLE “Archaeologists are interested in the Maori race here and now; they have love and respect for the Maori here and now and it is a gross untruth to think that their study is only of the dead Maori.” This was said by the curator of the Canterbury Museum, Dr Roger Duff, in an address he gave at Hawera during the time he was directing on behalf of the Taranaki Museum a search at Waitara for buried Maori artifacts. Dr Duff, who certainly practised what he preached while he was at Waitara, went on to give sound advice to all who were interested in archaeology in New Zealand. Even when not working over Maori land, he said, the archaeologist was seeking lost Maori property. Thus, however tempting a site might be, it was essential not to excavate against the wish of the present Maori people. This had been done at Waitara and what was more, a religious ceremony had been conducted also which helped greatly to allay any understandable misgivings some of the people might have had regarding the project. The pakeha had not produced any art in New Zealand comparable with that of the Maori stone age, he said, and the Maoris themselves had lost much of the power and beauty of their art since the coming of the white man. The ancient craftsmen of the area in which he was searching at present had drawn inspiration from Mount Taranaki and from the legends of his ancestors but later craftsmen had not been capable of producing the masterpieces of former times.