placesMana Whenua, Te PapaMana Whenua

These are not curios, and the museum does not frame them as any. Its collections page states the principle it works under: "Mana Taonga is a recognition of the power of taonga to communicate deep truths about our people." It counts more than 30,000 taonga registered in the Taonga Māori collection, from ancestral carvings, personal ornaments, garments and weaponry through to flaked stone, bird bone and shell from excavations, and it says the Mana Taonga principle guides its approach to access and research, aiming at "the reconnection of people to their tribal taonga".

The hei-tiki make the point about how objects travel. Te Papa holds over 200 of them, the largest single group anywhere; the British Museum has about fifty. Some were exchanged or given to European travellers and sailors at the earliest point of contact, and, in the encyclopedia's flat phrasing, "the majority were stolen or improperly obtained through colonial processes". The stone itself is now legally Māori: in 1997 the Crown handed ownership of all naturally occurring pounamu back to the South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu as part of their Claims Settlement. Pounamu is nephrite jade and bowenite, found only in the South Island, and Māori classify it by colour — kahurangi, īnanga, kawakawa, tangiwai.

The whare at the centre of the gallery is the clearest case in the building. Te Hau ki Tūranga is a nineteenth-century Rongowhakaata carved meeting house, confiscated by the Crown in 1867 and later held by Te Papa; ownership was returned to Rongowhakaata through the iwi's Treaty settlement, and the house stayed in the museum while the iwi-in-residence exhibition Ko Rongowhakaata: Ruku i te Pō, Ruku i te Ao ran from September 2017 to February 2022. The museum kept the object and gave back the title.

Te Papa also does the asking. Karanga Aotearoa is, in the museum's own words, "the government mandated authority that negotiates the repatriation of Māori and Moriori ancestral remains on behalf of Māori and Moriori"; Cabinet agreed in May 2003 that Te Papa should act for the government in returning kōiwi and kōimi tangata — ancestral skeletal remains — and toi moko, preserved tattooed heads held in institutions abroad. Between 1 July 2003 and 1 May 2024 it repatriated 850 Māori and Moriori ancestral remains from overseas institutions, from Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere, and returned 76 to iwi within New Zealand. A Repatriation Advisory Panel oversees it, and iwi representatives set the place, the time and the details of each return.

From 29 August 2026 the carving argument is on show at scale. He Toi Whakairo: The Art of Māori Carving, running to August 2031 inside Mana Whenua on Level 4, puts more than 140 whakairo — carvings — from seven centuries in one place, many never exhibited before, under the whakataukī he toi whakairo, he mana tangata: the art of carving is the dignity of people.

Open every day, 10am to 6pm, except Christmas Day. Entry is free for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand and NZ$35 for international visitors aged 16 and over, as published on 17 September 2026; some exhibitions and experiences are ticketed on top. Mana Whenua is free with museum entry, is listed as wheelchair accessible, has variable lighting, and carries a no-photography rule. This project has not stood on Level 4.