Mana Taonga: Connecting Communities with New Zealand Museums through Ancestral Māori Culture

Abstract

This article considers the connections between museum collections and communities, and explores the ways in which this relationship has been transformed by recourse to ancestral Māori culture in New Zealand museums. Two case studies illustrate the application of the Indigenous concept of mana taonga at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Whanganui Regional Museum, which have indigenised professional practice in collection care, governance, interpretation and exhibition development. Reversing the conventional Western model of museum ownership of collections, the authors argue that the strong connections between taonga (treasures) and their descendent source communities can be used not only to acknowledge the mana (status, power, authority) of ancestral objects, but also to enhance the mana of those communities within the museum, effectively giving them a greater say in how their cultural heritage is managed.