LUZ MANUEL SANTOS TRIGO

Richard is of the opinion that Te Papa is ‘on the right track’ (Nunns personal communication, February 16, 2012) in enabling the accessibility of taonga. An example of the extent that Te Papa is prepared to go to are the shows being created and performed using taonga tawhito. However, permissions required with iwi is sometimes an impediment to provenance taonga. Richard comments:

Waiting around for several years to make a simple decision…it’s a power thing I suppose. It’s not a helpful thing in terms of appreciating the taonga and the ability to hear them (Nunns personal

communication, February 16, 2012).

The issue for Te Papa is to be able to make things happen far more easily than they do. In terms of facilitating access and managing a process to accommodate requests, Richard gave an example of an experience of Hirini

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Melbourne’s. This was a similar situation that had emerged for Hirini in regards to releasing the intellectual property of his tribe’s ancestral songs

and chants, or mōteatea.

Hirini talked about this particular issue often with Richard. Hirini was responsible for organising wānanga mōteatea for Ngāi Tūhoe. Youngsters from the city ‘keen as mustard’, would arrive with their Walkman recorders, set it up, and the elders would say no, ‘you have those out, we won’t speak’:

Hirini would say “if you think you are preserving these exquisite taonga for prosperity then you are wrong. We haven’t got the facility of memory that you all had as children to remember, growing up in this area, we can’t do that.” The elders relented (Nunns personal communication, February 16, 2012).

When asked his view on whether practitioners should be performing

mōteatea from different iwi with their taonga puoro, Richard commented that

there was an element of difficulty here, as certain areas have not preserved their own songs. He thinks that there is no reason why different iwi should not revive their own traditional knowledge, relating to their history.

Playing the older instruments in museum collections

As the next step moving forward, Richard believes playing and talking about the older taonga puoro in collections is a way of sustaining the life of the instruments and the momentum of the Haumanu kaupapa.

Richard was involved in two very rewarding examples of such occurrences, at the Nelson Provincial Museum and the Whanganui Museum. Between 1987-1988, Richard was invited by the Whanganui Museum to play every taonga puoro in their collection, to Māori elders from that region. Richard said that this idea was ‘full of wisdom’ and ‘visionary’. For two evenings, Richard

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played to elders from Whanganui, providing a very special and intimate

reconnection for these kaumātua to the taonga and their ancestors, in the

collection. Richard said that the experience was ‘wonderful’, and ‘animated’ the elders.

The second example was in 2012, which is detailed in chapter six. Te Papa photographer, Norman Heke and I, video recorded our first session with Richard talking about his extensive, personal taonga puoro collection. This

was part of a long-term acquisition project initiated to preserve Richard’s

memoirs on each puoro that was part of the Haumanu journey for future prosperity. The value of recording Richard playing and talking about his collection is to ensure that the stories and associations with the taonga are preserved, in the event of Te Papa becoming the long term repository for the collection.

The recording was a two day session with Richard, based on the first day at the Nelson Provincial Museum (NPM), and the second day at Richard’s home in Nelson. Thanks to Peter Millward, Director of the NPM, we were fortunate to record at the Museum. Conversations leading up to our visit

included the possibility of Richard playing an exquisite pūtōrino that was on

loan to the NPM from Te Papa. It was part of the William Oldman collection

and was regarded as one of the smallest pūtōrino known in a museum

collection. Peter Millward was fully supportive of Richard being recorded

playing the pūtōrino, as well as a small contemporary pūtōrino carved by

Warren Warbrick to be played as a comparison. This was the first time in

living memory that the older pūtōrino had been played. It was a significant

decision by Peter and his staff, as well as the Iwi Advisory Committee, in terms of museum protocol. But because of the positive relationship and trust that Peter and his team had developed with Richard and Brian Flintoff

through past exhibitions and public programmes, this decision was consistent with the Museum’s ongoing support of the taonga puoro revitalisation

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Whether Te Papa would be able to carry out similar events as the Whanganui Museum and the Nelson Provincial Museum on a regular, accepted basis remains to be seen. Richard suggests that it would be an initial ‘battle’ at first, persuading museum staff. Some of the older instruments can’t be played however, due to their fragility, brittleness of timber and

loosening of binding. Richard firmly believes a lot should be played, and

there should be regular events, along the lines of ‘Te Papa speaks, Te Papa

sings’.

Role of Te Papa

In conclusion, Richard suggests that Te Papa should be an exemplar of culture. As the national museum of New Zealand, Te Papa should be the main arbiter of decisions as to how cultural material is used. Despite this, over the years the change and lack of consistency of practice has made this transition problematic. His question remains:

They lose their voice if they're not held, greased and oiled, rebound, if they are not looked after they lose their voice. I don’t know the answer. Is it more preferable to have a taonga pristine, or is it more important that these taonga or musical instruments are still played? (Nunns personal communication, February 16, 2012).

Figure 4.2 Richard Nunns mentoring the Te Papa taonga puoro group. Te Marae, Te Papa, 2011. Photographer Norman Heke. Copyright Te Papa.

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CHAPTER FIVE