ABSTRACT
Early one morning in September 1984, one hundred Ma¯ori elders gathered in the pre-dawn darkness on Fifth Avenue in New York City, outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a karanga (call) rang out, they moved up the steps and into the museum, led by warriors in traditional costume. When they arrived at the Rockefeller wing, tohunga (priests) wearing feather cloaks proceeded to bless the taonga (treasures) in the exhibition. According to Time magazine, the opening of ‘Te Maori’ was the ‘most unusual opening’ in the 114-year history of the Met (Blake 1984: 40). Hirini Moko Mead, an academic closely involved with the exhibition, described the solemn ceremonies as the ‘breakthrough’, the moment when their artefacts became art:
By the time . . . we had finished our karakia [prayers], the frenzied clicking of the cameras of the international press present at the ceremony assured us all that this was a historical moment, a breakthrough of some significance, a grand entrance into the world of art. We had suddenly become visible.
