Story: Museums

Māori artefacts, late 1880s (1st of 3)

Māori artefacts, late 1880s

These Māori artefacts are from the Augustus Hamilton collection at the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, Napier, in the late 1880s. Hamilton, a significant collector of Māori material, was appointed director of the Colonial Museum in Wellington in 1903. He shifted the museum's focus to concentrate more on ethnology, in particular the study of things Māori. The display of material and the studies that were carried out tended to reflect Pākehā ideas about Māori, rather than the way Māori saw themselves.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, E. R. Williams Collection
Reference: 1/1-025855-G
Photograph by William Williams

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Conal McCarthy, 'Museums - Ethnology, research and building projects, 1900 to 1945', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/43872/maori-artefacts-late-1880s (accessed 26 April 2024)

Story by Conal McCarthy, published 22 Oct 2014