Te Ātiawa iwi exhibition
February 1998 - August 1999
Te Ātiawa discussed the legends of the very early people named Te Kāhui Maunga (the Assembly of Mountains) and their association with Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui (the south of the North Island). It looked at the nineteenth century, when Taranaki travelled south to the Wellington area, and told of the mix of tribes from Tai Hauāuru (the west coast) and the rise to prominence of Te Ātiawa leaders in the land sales of 1840, when ninety per cent of the land in Port Nicholson (Pōneke) was sold to the New Zealand Company.
Te Aupouri Iwi – people of smoke and flame
August 1999 - October 2001
Te Aupouri Iwi – people of smoke and flame was the iwi exhibition of the tenacious Te Aupouri tribe from the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Aupouri Iwi combined vivid images, contemporary art, and remarkable historical facts to tell a gutsy and compelling story.
This exhibition took as its central theme and motif a pepehā – the poetic chant – of the great chief Tumatahina.
Tūhoe - Children of the Mist
November 2001 - November 2003
Tūhoe moumou kai - We give you our stories
Tūhoe moumou taonga - We give you our treasures
Tūhoe moumou tangata ki te Pō - We give you our lives
The iwi exhibition partnership with Ngāi Tūhoe, the third in the programme, closed at Te Papa on Saturday 1 November 2003. The closing ceremony was attended by 600 people, mainly from Ngāi Tūhoe. Ngāi Tūhoe contributed to the exhibition content, narratives, and taonga; and schools within the Ngāi Tūhoe region contributed material relevant to the iwi in Te Huka ā Tai, one of Te Papa’s Discovery Centres.
In the twenty-four months that the exhibition was open, 31 per cent of Te Papa’s 2.5 million visitors visited the Tūhoe | Children of the Mist exhibition - equivalent to 777,333 visitors, averaging 33,797 visitors per month.
Te Awa Tupua - The Whanganui iwi exhibition
November 2003 - May 2006
E rere kau mai te awa nui mai i te kāhui maunga ki Tangaroa - ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au!
Approximately 2000 Whanganui iwi and invited guests attended the dawn ceremony heralding the opening of Te Awa Tupua | The Whanganui Iwi Exhibition.
> More information about Te Awa Tupua | The Whanganui Iwi Exhibition.