There’s a mystery on the shelves at the Thames Museum Te Whare Taonga o te Kauaeranga, and curators are searching for former Pūriri School students for answers.
A recent donation of a Māori doll from the 1960s prompted the museum to dig through its archived artefacts and put together a new display, museum society chair Carolyn McKenzie said.
The doll features traditional garments including a tīpare, tāniko, kākahu and piupiu. Its donor, S. Hall, told the museum she remembered receiving it as a gift in 1965, when such items were common tourist souvenirs. A similar doll resides at Te Papa museum in Wellington.
It’s not the doll that has museum staff wondering, however, but rather a collection of carvings – Kura Whakairo – displayed alongside it.
The six small carvings, including a waka and four figurines, were donated to the museum in 2017 by Graham Bycroft, former principal of Pūriri School and an avid collector of Māori taonga.
They were crafted by children at Pūriri School in the early 80s, not long after the discovery in nearby Waihōu River of a decorative lintel, or pare, dating from the 1830s.
“There was a general upsurge of interest in carving, I guess. And his pupils at that time learned how to carve.”
Photos from the early 80s held by Thames Museum show Graham and his students with the unearthed lintel. The lintel now resides at Auckland Museum.
Thames Museum also has two other children’s carvings, Carolyn said: an unfinished piece and a head which is too large for the display cabinet.
All the kura whakairo pieces are noa – free from the tapu or sacredness which protects ancient carvings or blessed works by master carvers. The museum sought guidance from Craig Solomon from Ngāti Maru to ensure they were appropriately displayed.
“Even though they are not tapu, we wanted to treat them with respect, like we do with all our artefacts,” Carolyn said.
The museum would like to know more about the carvings, Carolyn said, and is keen to hear from anyone who was involved in the carving project.
“[We want to] find out what’s happened to the schoolchildren who did this. We’re calculating that 40-odd years have gone by, so they’ll be in their 50s, maybe, pushing up to 60. It’ll probably be their grandchildren at school there now,” she said.
“We feel a strong connection with Pūriri because of Graham Bycroft having donated a lot of the taonga that he’d found, and his wife’s interest in us creating a Māori gallery. It’s a fabulous story.”
DETAILS: Information about the carvings can be shared by emailing thamesmuseum@xtra.co.nz or visiting the museum at 503 Cochrane St, Thames.
