The crowd at the exhibition opening moves into the Museum
A large crowd of over 100 were at the opening of Raglan Museum’s new exhibition on Saturday morning, 17 October. The displays showcase Maori artefacts from the north side of Raglan Harbour. The exhibition is named Te Horea – the Bird Family Collection exhibition.
Horea is the area just across the harbour from the Raglan township, often referred to as Bird Bay. Keith Bird farmed Horea from the mid-1940s. Keith and his family collected the taonga from the property. Descendants of Keith Bird had come from all over New Zealand for the exhibition opening.
The collection is significant because of the age of the many artefacts and in being one of the largest collected in New Zealand by one family from a small localised area. Some of the sites are amongst the earliest known for the west coast between Manukau Harbour and Mokau dating back to before 1250 when moas were last seen in the area.
After the blessing by kaumatua Sean Ellinson, Museum President Rodger Gallagher then welcomed guests and explained the importance of the exhibition and how it came about. He quoted well-known archaeologist Neville Ritchie who described the Bird Collection as, “Provenanced as it is to Horea, it provides a special insight into the Maori activity in that area in the past, their lifeways, and exploitation of local and more distant resources.”
He went on to explain how in 2012 the Bird family deposited the collection of over 2000 items in Raglan Museum as a long-term loan. And how since then Raglan & District Museum Society volunteers and its consultants have been working with Keith Bird’s children and the Ngati Tahinga iwi on putting the collection on display. Ngati Tahinga have allowed the taonga to be moved from their area to a Ngati Mahanga area and Ngati Mahanga agreed to this.
Lynette Williams was the lead consultant and curator for the exhibition assisted by Dean Cato, a 3D designer from Design Strategies. Anderson Design turned the design concepts into three-dimensional reality.
Museum President Rodger Gallagher, ended by saying, “The result is a superb exhibition which displays this collection beautifully and tells its story well.”
Rusty Bird at the exhibition opening.
Kaumatua Russell Riki then spoke about the exhibition saying the Maori way of preserving taonga was to bury them. As a father of part Pakeha and part Maori children he had learnt to understand that the Pakeha way of preserving taonga in museums was also a good way. Earlier Rusty Bird had said that he was sure that having the taonga on display would allow young Maori to understand their roots and what their ancestors had done to live and thrive around Whaingaroa
Clint Baddeley then spoke on behalf of the Waikato District Council saying this exhibition was what Sunnah Thompson and Wally Crawford, two no longer with us, had worked for.
The oldest of Keith Bird’s children, Bev Hooper then declared the exhibition open. After visitors had a first look at the exhibition morning tea, prepared by Pauline Tucker, was served in the Fire Station social room.
The exhibition is open daily in the Raglan Museum, 15 Wainui Road, Raglan. It was made possible with funding from the Lottery Grants Board, Trust Waikato, the Stewart Bequest and Waikato District Council.
Sooo wonderful…I remember being one of the privileged few, as a young person being shown around in the museum at Mr Birds home..many many years ago.
We’ve tried to capture some of the old Horea museum with a few photos and the record cards. Sue Hughes (nee Bird) was telling me on Saturday how she remembered writing the catalogue numbers on the artefacts.