ABSTRACT
Museums have changed through the adoption of bicultural philosophies that have seen a huge increase in the number of Maori people involved in the organizations. The archaeological sector has legislation that forces working relationships between archaeologists and Maori tribes. The burgeoning field of natural and cultural resource management sees a large number of Maori engaged in projects that overlap with archaeological values. The traditional home territory of the author's tribe, Ngai Tahu, comprises the greater bulk of the South Island of New Zealand, as well as Stewart Island, the smallest of the three main islands. By the early 1990s, the numbers of Maori working in museums had grown from a tiny handful of us only a few years earlier. Following the success of the Bruce Bay excavation, a similar initiative was developed in response to the active erosion of a site at the Gutter, a small inlet on the remote western coast of Stewart Island.
