sharing the past - Auckland Museum

Sharing the Past
15 Teacher Background
Auckland Museum
Te Papa Whakahiku
TAUMATA ATUA - AN ABIDING PLACE OF THE SPIRIT
THE DISCOVERY AND RECLAIMING OF A KUMARA GOD
The Maori world was carefully regulated as to when and how
food related activities took place. Rongo the god of agriculture
needed to be honoured with the correct ceremonial procedures if
the crops were to be successfully grown each year. The knowledge of
how to conduct such ceremonies was entrusted to the tohunga who
used specially prepared tools and ensured that all behaved appropriately,
not only during the ceremony but also throughout the season.
Sometimes a carved stone figure was placed in kumara gardens. The
powerful male god Rongo was summoned by the tohunga to take up
residence there and watch over and encourage the growth of the plants.
In Auckland much of the physical evidence of
Maori gardening practices has long
since been obliterated by European
farming techniques initially and
encroaching housing development
subsequently. Every now and then
a combination of fortuitous circumstances
reveals a glimpse of
the past. Such was the case with
the carved stone kumara figure
from Onehunga.
James Ah Mu, a real estate representative,
had been dealing
with a property in Onehunga
which was in the process of
being developed. During the
course of his visits he had
noticed an apparently carved
piece of basalt rock lying about on the rear of the
section. He could see it was no ordinary lump of
scoria as it had the appearance of a sitting human
figure. It was intriguing. Evidently no one else seems
to have appreciated its significance though as he
found it about to be pitched into a rubbish skip
some time later. He was able to rescue it just in the
nick of time. Curiosity prompted him to bring it to
the Museum to be examined.
The serene scoria features of
the Kumara god now watch over
its own garden in Te Ao Turoa.
teacher background
When the Museum's archaeologist Nigel Prickett
and ethnologist Roger Neich arrived to inspect
the site they found the developers just in the
process of demolishing the last remaining stone
garden walls before flattening the whole
area. The two scientists were surprised that
an artefact of such mana (spiritual power)
was still to be found lying abandoned
close to where it had stood in ages past.
Te Warena Taua, a Maori curator at the
Museum, consulted his elders and was
thrilled to discover they had a story
that seemed to confirm such a carved
figure was known in this area. Therefore
it probably belongs to Te Wai-o-hua.
Since its arrival in the Museum it has
fared much better than ignominious burial
in a rubbish skip. Firstly it sat as a
sentinel in the Maori Gallery illustrating an
Auckland regional art style and now it sits where it
may feel really at home, in the beautiful Te Ao
Turoa, the year 2000 Maori Natural History
Gallery. Here it watches over a small kumara garden
which incorporates a low whare kumara
(kumara storage hut), its lichened features hinting
at ages of patient guardianship.