A kiwi-feather cloak given to a British museum has finally been returned to the two iwi tribes that designed the cultural gift for a visiting doctor 126 years ago.
Prominent Ngāti Rārua and Ngāti Toa Rangatira leaders, Hapareta Rore Pukekohatu and Mere te Hiko, from the Wairau Pā community in the traditional Te Tauihu (top front) South Island had bestowed the treasured kahu kiwi heirloom onto Dr George Gleghorn back in 1900 out of gratitude for treating their ill Tangata (people).
The garment carries deep cultural significance, representing identity, ancestry, mana (prestige and authority) and relationships of belonging to the Māori tribal groups.
Dr Cleghorn's widow, a decade after his death, loaned the cloak to the Pitt Rivers Museum located at Oxford University in 1913 - where it remained hidden away for the next 113 years.
Dr Lorraine Eade, a descendant of one of the iwi men and the chair of Ngāti Rārua o Te Wairau Society, would later identify the kahu kiwi at the museum.
The Aotearoa delegates this week brought back the cloak from Oxford to the Takapūwāhia Marae - a key Māori gathering place - near Wellington, as the principal marae (gathering place) of the Ngāti Toa Rangatira people, after it was returned in a heartfelt exchange from Dr Gleghorn's descendants.
The cloak will temporarily be cared for at Te Papa Tongarewa - that translates as the "containers of treasures" - at the Museum of New Zealand before returning to Hauhunga Marae in October 2027 once the building of a new wharenui (Māori meeting house) is completed.
Dr Cleghorn arrived in New Zealand to be appointed in 1876 the medical superintendent of Wairau Hospital that cared for the Māori community.
"He wasn't supposed to serve the Māori who lived within the Wairau Pā (a historically significant Māori settlement) because we were associated to another board...but he never ever turned us away," Ms Eade told Radio New Zealand.
"He came out and did home visits - he came out and talked to us about how to keep your water safe after flooding."
Whānau (Māori families) did not have the financial resources to pay Dr Cleghorn, but in a level of reciprocity, they would provide him with flax, a native plant, for sutures (stitches) and sphagnum moss for both bandaging and kai (food).
Dr Cleghorn also performed the first appendectomy in the country, while also setting up typhoid wards at Wairau Hospital that were integral to the community.
"The doctor was very, very special to us because he did look after the interests of Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Toa and Rangitāne of Wairau Pā," Ms Eade said.
It was also reported a greenstone mere - a traditional flat, club-like weapon - that was also gifted to Dr Gleghorn has been more difficult track down after his relatives informed the iwi delegation it was auctioned off during the 1970s.
Ngāti Rārua have set up a database containing a list of all of the taonga that were gifted to dignitaries of the past.
"We're on a mission," Ms Eade said.
"This will be the first one across the line and then we'll start the journey for the next one."
