Traditionally, Taonga tuku iho (Māori ancestral treasures) circulated within complex political, social, and economic landscapes. From the late eighteenth century, however, the influx of Pākehā (non-Māori) resulted in tens of thousands of artworks moving out of Māori communities and into museums overseas. This article considers the dilemma of how to reconnect taonga Māori with whānau (family), hapū (sub-tribe), and iwi (tribe). A digital case study is presented as part of the Ngā Taonga o Wharawhara: The World of Māori Body Adornmentproject, as one strategy. We created a database we call the Rākai Register, and identified easy-to-use and cost-effective digital technologies such as Google Drive and Google Maps to store and display information about adornments either in public museum collections or which have been sold through auction. In the last section, we present the perspectives of Māori and Pasifika experts engaged with museum collections who reflect on the value and concerns of putting such cultural material online.

Glossary of Māori terms: Atua: deity; Aurei: cloak pins of ivory or greenstone;Hapū: sub-tribe; Harakeke: Phormium tenax, fibre used extensively in weaving; Hei matau: fish hook-shaped greenstone adornment; Hei tiki: human-shaped adornment, usually from greenstone; He kupu hōu: some terminology; Heru: fine hair comb; Iwi: tribe; Kaitiaki: guardian; Kaitiakitanga: guardianship; Kanohi-ki-te-kanohi: face-to-face; Kapeu: a greenstone eardrop with the end curved; Kōrero: narratives; Kōrero pūrākau: knowledge review; Kuru: straight greenstone adornment; Mako: shark's tooth, used as an ear-ornament; Mana: prestige; Manaia: spiritual guardian, often shown as a beaked figure; Marakihau: carved figure with a fish tail, human head and a tube-like tongue; Mātauranga Māori: Māori knowledge; Mihi: greet; Pākehā: non-Māori; Papahou: rectangular-shaped carved wooden container for adornment; Pekapeka: a greenstone adornment representing two bats back-to-back; Pōria: an adornment made of pounamu or bone to mimic a ring worn on the leg of a captive bird; Powaka whakairo: box-like container for adornments; Pūpū harakeke: land snails; Rakau momori: Moriori tree engraving; Rākei: to adorn, bedeck; adorn oneself; Rei puta: whale tooth adornment; Tā: Sir; Tamariki: children; Tangata whenua: people of the land, Māori; Tangihanga: funeral; Taoka: Ngāi Tahu dialect version of ‘taonga’; Taonga/taonga tuku iho: treasure, anything prized; Tapu: sacredness; Te Ao Māori: The Māori World; Te Kore: The Nothingness; Te Reo me ōna tikanga: the language and protocols; Tikanga: protocols; Tino Rangatiratanga: sovereignty; Waiata poi: poi song; Waka huia: oval-shaped carved wooden container for adornment; Whakaaro: thoughts; Whakakai: straight greenstone adornment; Whānau: family; Whakapapa: genealogical ascent and descent; provenance; Whakataukī: proverb; Wharawhara: long plumes of the white heron, worn by chiefs on state occasions; Wheua: human bone

Introduction

Since 2020 our lives have changed radically with the effects of a new virus forcing people to stay at home, socially distance, and get vaccinated. Within Te Ao Māori (the Māori world), how we practiced culture transformed quickly: multi-generational households were encouraged to get vaccinated to protect tamariki (children, who were ineligible at that stage for the vaccine), and tangihanga (funeral) were held via live stream. A sense of isolation made us consider how many taonga (treasures) must feel in museums–separated from those who made them and the landscapes in which they circulated. Some taonga created specifically for trade with early European voyagers to New Zealand in the late eighteenth century have spent more time in museums than actually at home surrounded by te reo me ōna tikanga (the language and protocols). Yet the ever-changing dynamic of digital technologies may offer a mechanism in which reconnection might be possible. How can Māori communities engage and drive such initiatives? How might that affect the vexed issue of repatriation? How might these media address the gap of intangible heritage in relation to collections? And ultimately, how can this influence discussions on the Indigenisation of the museum as pitched by Moana Jackson? This article draws on existing literature, as well as kōrero (narratives) with Māori and Pacifika people involved in museums, and a case study based in Google. These are used to explore the questions posed and ponder how far museums have come in their aspirations for an engaged, community-focused institution.

Knowledge review / kōrero pūrākau

The research undertaken for this article recognises the benefits of consulting and engaging with written texts and (often, more importantly, Māori), oral histories, kōrero, and the taonga themselves. As Burgess et al. (2021) argue, it is imperative that we celebrate those other sites in which mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) is located and generated, and also recognise both established scholars and early career researchers. Their article was recently discussed in a reading group of Te Pouhere Kōrero (Māori Historians Network), where there were also calls for consulting fictional and creative work as ‘it’s all composition and intellectual production’ (Aroha Harris).¹ Such broad research purvey not only benefits Māori, but all people who then come to understand the place of any project within a complicated, forever shifting matrix.

The notion of taonga being in a digital world builds on the emergence of New Museology from the 1970s when institutions were interrogated for their mono-cultural, elitist, and increasingly irrelevant status in society. There were calls for engagement with communities and a consequent shifting in power relations within institutions–these kinds of kōrero had gone on within Indigenous communities for generations. In Aotearoa, the rising number of roles for Māori within the museum sector was enhanced by the popularity of the Te Māoriexhibition of the 1980s, where Māori understandings of their taonga as ‘art’ were reinforced. The displays fuelled interest in museums’ origins and contemporary care of Indigenous collections. Specific studies focused on taonga in museum collections/collectors (see Tapsell 2003, 2006, 2014), including those written by museum staff (see Horwood 2008). Specific art forms based in museums prompted close investigation (Neich re carving (2001), tapa (2004) and adornment (2004); Tamarapa (2019) and Pendergrast (1987, 1982) re weaving; Te Awekotuku re moko (2007)). Increasingly overseas museums (notably the British Museum, and in Germany (Hamburg re Rauru)) have begun to use exhibitions and particular taonga to investigate their histories and, by extension, the history of global colonisation (Carreau 2018). Renovation projects, notably those of the meeting houses Hinemihi (Sully 2016), Ruatepupuke (Hakiwai and Terrell 1994), and Rauru (Waitere, Thomas and Adams 2009), have enabled new research about the artists and their communities, both past and present.

As Māori communities became more vocal about their Tino Rangatiratanga (sovereignty), the government slowly began to address breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, which contributed to a re-evaluation of the histories and social and political roles of taonga tuku iho (ancestral treasures). Anthropologists such as Paul Tapsell (1997, 2000) and art historians such as Ngahuia Te Awekotuku (2003) started to question not only the sanitised published histories of taonga but also asked why they remained in such institutions, including archives (see Makaore 1999; Winiata 2005; Wikaira 2004; Tupara 2005).

Around the same time, the idea of digital/new media (Geismar 2013, 2018; Hening 2006) started to emerge as one method which could transform cultural heritage more broadly. Institutions and researchers connected with digital technologies and examined their collections to begin reaching out to Indigenous communities; simultaneously, those same communities were looking for positive ways to engage with their taonga in museums. Several projects were initiated, which ultimately linked such research to iwi empowerment and futures: for Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, see Ngata et al. 2012; for Moriori, see Solomon and Thorpe 2012; for Ngāi Tahu see Glasgow 2017. Other projects were more generalised and have provided further practice models about Māori archival material (see Whaanga et al. 2015; and Stevenson and Callaghan 2008). Rachael Ka’ai-Mahuta (2012) introduced us to a digital repository of Māori oral histories; in her example, it was called Tāmata Toiere, which would be free to access, be able to recover traditional knowledge and store it for future generations. Ultimately new media can be conceived as part of a continuum–indeed, Deidre Brown and George Nicholas have argued that Māori and Canadian First Nations communities have been able to pivot toward these new ideas ‘as a continuation of social processes that have dynamically endured over more than two centuries’ (Brown and Nicholas 2012, p. 307).

The Covid landscape has enabled us to assess how successful this pivoting has been. With limited to no access to taonga in collections, how might a research team–in this case, focused on Māori adornment–engage with taonga? How have museum strategies based on digital technologies assisted, certainly given earlier research? Could the project proceed at all? And how might it be possible to create a provisional database using free easy-to-access digital technologies? The following section reveals that with determination and resilience, finding taonga, at the very least, can be undertaken relatively well. But first, some kupu hōu (terminology).

He kupu hōu–some terminology

The terminology used in and about the digital world is ever-changing. Michelle Hening (2006) coined ‘New Media’ to describe ‘computer-based or digital media’. However, the first writings about the museum and new media had emerged some years earlier (Jones-Garmil and Anderson 1997). The term ‘museum computing’ was also popular (Parry 2007), building on the UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage’s definition of digital heritage as ‘computer-based materials of enduring value that should be kept for future generations’ (2003).^⁠2 The goal of this Charter is essential here, to ‘ensure it remains accessible to the public … free from unreasonable restrictions’ (Article 2). UNESCO recognised that ‘The world’s digital heritage is at risk of being lost to posterity’ (Article 3), which is ‘rapid and inevitable’ (Article 4). Their three calls for action (Article 9) are also relevant for this research: that developers of hardware and software work with those in the GLAM sector, focus on the development of training and research, and that universities and others ensure the preservation of research data. We might classify this last point as Indigenous data sovereignty–or the importance of Māori to retain and claim rangatiratanga (sovereignty) over the information that relates to them. This is discussed later.

Digital media, in a practical sense, might involve Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR, VR). VR or Virtual Reality has parallels with the concept of Living Museums–both want to provide the visitor with an immersive experience to give them the feeling of being in a site. The visit would thus shift through time and space to be in another reality.^⁠3 Information about an object or the landscape in which it was sourced might be generated using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and 3D modelling, both of which have the potential to record a range of different types of data and relate them to a location. Digital technologies are a central part of archaeology today and can ultimately assist in interpreting and understanding the socio-economic structures of the past. New Media has also involved the creation of a Virtual Museum (e.g. the Virtual Museum of New France hosted through the Canadian Museum of Civilization). The capacity seems endless.

For those at the forefront of Indigenous researching in museums, the term ‘digitisation’ is a much broader term and encompasses the use of any digital technology. For Dr Amber Aranui (Repatriation Researcher, Karanga Aotearoa Programme, Te Papa Tongarewa), digitisation means ‘an ability to visualise, study and understand taonga in several ways for a variety of reasons. It could be as simple as a providing a digital copy of an image of a tupuna to a high-quality digital image to study the intricacies of a carving’ (email to Ngarino Ellis 2021). Ph.D. student Talei Tu’inukuafe agrees that access is an important issue, which has implications for contemporary communities as access ‘on a deeper level, allows the continuation and transformation of knowledge into new forms’ (email to Ngarino Ellis 2021). Indeed, Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai and Barbara Makuati-Afitu of Lagi-Maama Academy & Consultancy describe digitisation as ‘merely a tool for sharing knowledge and information’ though they remind us that ‘many of these [taonga] are ‘not’ just objects–they are ancestors–with mana [prestige]–so that responsibility needs to sit with us in this time-space’ (email to Ngarino Ellis 2021). Clearly, those engaging with taonga on the one hand and communities on the other understand the vital ongoing connections between them, and the potential of digitisation.

Some definitions of taonga

The present research centres on taonga tuku iho. Tā (Sir) Apirana Mahuika, ex-Chair of Te Runanga o Ngāti Porou, and consultant to Te Papa Tongarewa described taonga: ‘[they] had a whakapapa [genealogical ascent and descent] both in the traditions/history expressed by the taonga as well as that of the creator of the taonga. These rights accorded to iwi the mana to care for their taonga, to speak about them and with them, and to determine the exhibitionary use or uses by the Museum’ (Mahuika 1991, p. 1). Meanwhile, carver and ex-museum curator Nick Tupara gives us a broader way of thinking about taonga: ‘[they] all have names. They all have lineage; people have lineage to them, therefore they have a spirit about them. They are a living thing. They are treated like people! People talk to them and people sleep with them … if you’re away for too long, your home fire is going to go out and there’s a dire need to want to go back and be with your people’. (Clavir 2002, p. 223). ^⁠Hirini Moko Mead (1997) encouraged us to think about key Māori values that surrounded taonga, being mana, tapu (sacredness) and kōrero. Ultimately, taonga are part of our whakapapa (genealogy) stretching back to Te Kore (The Nothingness), and through to future generations; they are physical and spiritual, political and social, binding people together in whatever form they take, from the carving, to the whakataukī (proverb), to the knowledge of using an iPhone to take a photo of a waiata poi (poi song). In the language of the United Nations, these taonga are both tangible and intangible. Taonga, then, generate different ideas for different people, but they are ultimately based on critical values of mana, tapu, kōrero and whakapapa. With this in mind, let us now turn to consider one particular digital project that has centred these values to create a baseline of Māori adornment in museums.

Case study: the Rākai Register for the Ngā Taonga o Wharawhara project

Discussion

Taonga in museums today circulate within a digital world. This case study has demonstrated the importance of institutions uploading information about taonga onto the internet. Given the vast distances between Māori in Aotearoa and museums overseas and the sheer cost of visiting them, an essential first step is knowing what is where. The Rākai Register indicates the size of collections overseas, albeit focused on adornment. It suggests that the true extent of taonga ex-Aotearoa is more extensive than first thought and more research is required to update Haikiwai’s archive. The forging of relationships with museum personnel and their inclusion in future registers is vital. These relationships take time and care to build, and we need people who can act as conduits, introducing whānau, hapū, and iwi and researchers to those contacts. Indeed, there is interest in many museums in forging relationships with Māori, as previous research projects have demonstrated.

However, at least 90% if not more of the collections overseas are unprovenanced and therefore it is tough for any reconnection to occur if there is no recorded history, no person’s name or location, or iwi history. It was rare for any kind of contextual information to be collected when taonga were originally acquired though there are exceptions, such as those now in the Pigorini Museum in Rome. These were acquired by the Italian geologist and museum curator Enrico Giglioli; he obtained 46 adornments, of which a remarkable 36 have a tribal or person affiliation included. These include: a kapeu (a greenstone eardrop with the end curved) belonging to Titore of Ngāpuhi (reg 450), and a whakakai (straight greenstone adornment) of Te Whiti o Rongomai’s (reg 448). There is a rare dentalium shell necklace from Ngāti Whatua (1412g) and nine drilled shells from Matakaea (Shag’s Point, reg 779-786). This provenance information provides an entry-point for whānau, hapū, and iwi to ‘access’ what is there, though the Pigorini Museum collection is not yet available online. Indeed, taonga collections in museums in non-English speaking countries is still relatively unknown, with most being written about by their curators.

The type and amount of information online about taonga, quite apart from the politics of whether to put up an image, is a tricky issue. For Talei Tu’inukuafe who is researching Māori and Pacific head-dresses in museum collections, ‘Knowledge, information or objects that are by nature ‘secret’, sacred or prohibited need to be regulated, carefully managed, and in extreme cases (where appropriate) protected from digitisation if it could lead to potential exploitation’. (email to Ngarino Ellis 2021) The term ‘protected’ is significant here; taonga are cared for by Māori, rather than owned. More specifically, particular whānau, hapū, and iwi have special relationships and responsibilities towards the kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of those taonga, and digitisation might threaten this relationship if museums are in control of what is put online with no consultation.

Barbara Makuati-Afitu and Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai, who both worked on the successful 3-year Pacific Community Access Project at Auckland War Memorial Museum, emphasise the need for ‘partnership (going forward) with Indigenous Onto-Epistemologists who whakapapa to that particular taonga’ (email to Ngarino Ellis 2021). In that project, communities from 13 different Pacific nations were invited into the Museum to engage with 5000 Pacific treasures in the collection. Kanohi-ki-te-kanohi (face-to-face) was imperative throughout to enrich the museum’s data information and, more importantly, to start a relationship with those communities. The conversations that took place add a rich intangible heritage dynamic to the museum record, and enabled all those concerned to have a fuller understanding of the whakapapa of taonga. These moments of encounter were shared in the digital sphere via Instagram, letting others from those communities to also benefit, albeit via screen, from these beautiful and moving reunions.

These different moments (collection, re-connection) can be considered as part of a continuum for the taonga. The time frame might begin as far back as Te Kore, before light emerged and with it the creation of original atua (deity) of different materials such as stone or harakeke (Phormium tenax, fibre used extensively in weaving), and then move through time to the point of making into a particular form (such as hei matau (fish hook-shaped greenstone adornment) or rei puta (whale tooth adornment)) and then moving through time still towards–in the case of museums–the moment of collection. Yet this earlier provenance which we conceptualise as whakapapa is dismissed within the auction scene, where only the identity of non-Māori ‘owners’ is privileged. Looking at collections more broadly would also include these auctioned taonga–they circulate online in glossy catalogues pitched at wealthy private purchasers. These adornments have been included on the Rākai Register, and are significant as they only come into view for a small period of time, before often disappearing into the homes of private collectors.

Much less known about, and regulated, are those taonga sold via online sites such as Trade Me, where sellers offer ‘goods’ from their personal collections. A private Facebook group named Kāhui Kaitīaki, with its membership of Māori who work in museums, keeps tabs on certain sellers who regularly sell via this site. The seller is reliant on technology to publicise their ‘goods’ and typically include little information, especially in relation to whakapapa. As it is a public website, sellers of taonga are regularly ‘called out’ in the comments section for not offering the taonga back to whānau, hapū and iwi. One Christchurch-based seller’s recent response dismissed such a query, replying, ‘That would be like asking the owner of a Rembrandt to give it back to the artists family’. Educating the New Zealand public about the impact of colonisation on Māori still has some way to go it seems.

The methods of digitisation are part of what Chanel Clarke, Te Rau Aroha Curator at Waitangi Treaty Grounds, describes as a ‘digital toolbox’ (zoom with Ngarino Ellis 2021). When working previously at Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira in the same role, she described how this was used in relation to taonga: ‘The main focus for us was the catalogue and Collections Online but there were these other things we did in pockets that you could say was digitisation’. These included 3d-scanning of pūpū harakeke (land snails) for Ngāti Kurī as part of the tribe’s ongoing research into biodiversity, and arranging for the Te Rarawa fourteenth century wood carving Tangonge to be similarly scanned at the University of Auckland in 2012 to be used in place of the carving when it was home at Te Ahu Community Facility, in Kaitāia.

Indeed, the digital ‘tools’ can be used to address different goals of iwi and museums, and can support a multi/trans-disciplinary approach. Gerard O’Regan, Curator and Pouhere Kaupapa Māori at Otago Museum, talked about cases he had been involved in where disparate groups had worked on specific projects (zoom with Ngarino Ellis 2021). In one, twenty rākau momori (Moriori tree engravings) from Rēkohu but currently at Otago Museum were 3d-scanned by Māori students from the School of Surveying (University of Otago) and then printed by Joshua Emmitt at The University of Auckland–this created mutually beneficial options going forward: if the taoka¹² were returned to Moriori then the Museum might have, with their consent, the 3d copies or vice versa. The Wharawhara project has encouraged such a trans-disciplinary approach–ultimately, we are all looking at the same taonga, but through different lens.

So, what are the implications for the tikanga (protocols) involved in caring for our taonga? Our ancestral treasures and images and information about them require to be looked after with mana to uphold their tapu. Tikanga can and does evolve based on ever-changing dynamics within communities, but some aspects remain constant–such as mana, tapu and kōrero. In this project Ngarino (who has 20 years experience working with taonga) advised Eliza and Eleanor about these protocols as both were new to the Māori research phenomena. In the project we treated all data about a taonga (eg text, photograph) in the same way we would the physical taonga, especially in relation to food. An important part of the Wharawhara project is teaching early career researchers about these tikanga as part-and-parcel of ‘what we do’ when we study taonga Māori.

Given that almost all the kaitiaki (guardians) in museums overseas are not Māori, how then can we as Māori teach them about these important tikanga? Do we need to hold wananga with them to explain the importance of tikanga, especially in relation to moving material online? Is there an opportunity here for more Māori to be involved in collections, certainly a workable pathway with so many Māori now living overseas, mainly in the US and UK, where the majority of taonga in museums currently reside? Ideally all kaitiaki of taonga Māori would have such training, but for now it usually depends on the level of engagement museums have with Māori visitors of taonga, and learn from them about how to approach their collections with care. Ngā Taonga o Wharawhara aspires to contribute to a future, where digital material about taonga are understood to be part of the museum record. While many Māori may wish for their taonga to be repatriated, others such as Ngāti Porou at Tokomaru Bay with their whare Ruatepupuke in the Field Museum, Chicago, are content that their treasure is being used as an ambassador for New Zealand and a hub for Māori living in the US.

The digital technologies discussed in this article are not without their own complexities in relation to intellectual property.¹³ Ultimately it is a company who ‘holds’ the information on their systems–in our case Google and Microsoft. Questions remain about who has access to that information, with the risk of non-Māori using this data for their own means. In relation to the art world, this might mean those in other countries making new artworks based on taonga in a virtual database and then selling them; in another scenario, a private ethnographic art dealer or auction house might be able to use the data to drive up prices of taonga by stating there are other examples of a work they are selling in a well-known museum. Auction catalogues are full of such language.

One exciting development which can address concerns over how to protect Indigenous cultural material which circulate in a digital world are Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels. As explained by Associate Professor Maui Hudson (University of Waikato and Co-Director of Local Contexts), ‘digital tags that can sit alongside the digital assets or the knowledge so as that knowledge is circulating around the world, those digital tags can sit alongside to guide what appropriate behaviour might look like’ (https://localcontexts.org/). The labels are chosen jointly by an Indigenous group and an institution, from the 20 currently available; these are then placed on public-facing webpages where there is access to the Indigenous digital material. Examples of the labels include ‘TK Non-Commercial’ to advise the material is not to be commercialised in any way, and ‘TK Culturally Sensitive’ to warn users to take particular care when accessing the data. In our study, TK labels can act as tikanga, as they advise users about important aspects of the material online from the perspective of the Indigenous knowledge holders.

The Labels were an initiative of Local Contexts and are part of a wider network concerned about Indigenous data sovereignty (IDS). This concept is relatively new (Te Mana Raraunga) and is relevant in this study as is promotes the importance of Indigenous peoples retaining ownership over information about them. As Professor Tahu Kukutai (University of Waikato) and Professor John Taylor (Australian National University) summarise:

Indeed, IDS is crucial to Ngā Taonga o Wharawhara, where we are keenly aware of issues of controlling the circulation of data we have collected. With museum collections of taonga, there is often a tension between policies of the institution in which they are situated and the source community from which they originate and continue to be valued as living ancestors. Research into IDS concepts as well as TK Labels is part of the future work of our project, as we identify new directions for the material presented in the current study and consider how best to protect the data as it moves into a public arena through publication and other means.

The digital component of Ngā Taonga o Wharawhara project is also shaped by the recommendations of the WAI 262: Ko Aotearoa Tenei Report (2011). This claim was lodged by six Māori from Northland in 1991 who were concerned with the Crown’s policies as they related to mātauranga Māori and taonga. The Waitangi Tribunal Report recommended far-reaching changes to many aspects of Governmental policies. The Report has the potential to restore Māori control over many aspects of their lives, and their cultural expressions, in our case adornment. In relation to museums, WAI 262 creates the opportunity for partnership over taonga at the very least, or full repatriation of taonga and all data relating to them at the other end of the spectrum. This may be the outlook for institutions here, but as our research shows, many more taonga reside overseas–and the question then is, how to proceed? Certainly, the Government has been proactive in this space through the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme, especially in relation to human remains. The work ahead of us is monumental.

Our study sits within a broader kōrero of the role of Māori in museums. In 2016 at the Museums Aotearoa conference, lawyer Moana Jackson made us re-think the future when he pitched for museums not to Indigenise, but in relation to Aotearoa New Zealand, to ‘re-Māorify’. His words reminded us to keep advocating for museums to be conceptualised as Māori spaces (see also Te Awekotuku 2020). Then Head of Mātauranga Māori at Te Papa Tongarewa, Puawai Cairns (2020, 2018), was energised by his words, calling out the sometimes-hollow term of ‘decolonisation’ after seeing the workload implications for Māori staff of this ideal. She reminds us that ‘Indigenous staff are not an inexhaustible resource’ and lobbied for museums to be understood as ‘sovereign spaces’, demanding ‘mana motuhake–for our own cultural autonomy–within the museum realm’. Ultimately these sovereign spaces can spread out to digital worlds, extending the lives of taonga past the physical to something more dynamic and influential.

Conclusion

Through the Wharawhara project, we now understand the potential of digital technologies about taonga on several different levels. At its simplest, a photograph of a taonga is taken with a digital camera and then uploaded to a database, information is added from existing file cards, and then this set is uploaded to the internet. Yet it is never as straightforward as this. Questions of ethics (which taonga to upload, what information should be included, and even which photograph to use) centre on the politics of power–who makes these decisions. What consultation has been made with Māori, and with whānau, hapū and iwi for those taonga with known whakapapa? In all cases, care needs to be undertaken to uphold the tapu and mana of the taonga, especially those made from wheua (human bone). We know of the physical and spiritual protections our ancestors took in creating such works and the need for us to act as kaitiaki responsible for maintaining this sense of tapu.

Are we any further in re-engaging with our taonga than we were 10 years ago? Technology has changed, for instance, with the rise in smartphones with excellent cameras, where images and videos can be shared quickly and for free. Indeed, we have witnessed how creatives (usually from overseas) troll the internet for pictures of taonga, which they re-make and then sell; our adornment artists in festivals such as Polyfest and Te Matatini are very wary and shoo away some people armed with iPhones trying to photograph their creative works, digital images of which are then emailed off-shore to be made cheaply and then imported into New Zealand for sale in other markets and online. There are more types of platforms where such heritage can be shared, especially since the advent of Instagram in 2010 and Snapchat a year later.

The museum's role in the twenty-first century continues to evolve, as we understand them as not neutral places but rather generators of knowledge and culture, as sites of cultural production. We know now that digitisation is also not neutral.¹⁴ In the context of Covid-19 and ongoing lockdowns, digitisation becomes the only way to engage with taonga, for the time being. Increasingly there are renewed calls for power-sharing in cultural and heritage institutions, stimulated in part by rising activism by iwi and hapū post-Waitangi Settlement where taonga are an integral part of Māori futures. The potential of WAI 262 remains in process, especially in relation to the expectation of government to re-Māorify the sector. In the middle are taonga–their treatment is a barometer for these issues and a cry for us to step up our caring for them in such unsettling times.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Royal Society Marsden Fund [19-UOA-019] and The University of Auckland Summer Scholarship programme for supporting this research. We especially mihi to those who shared their whakaaro (thoughts) about this topic: Amber Aranui, Chanel Clarke, Gerard O’Regan, Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai and Barbara Makuati-Afitu of Lagi-Maama Academy & Consultancy, and Talei Tu’inukuafe – ngā mihi aroha ki a koutou mō ōu whakaaro. Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers who commented on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

This work was supported by Royal Society Marsden [Grant Number 19-UOA-019].