Historic kiwi-feather cloak returns to Marlborough iwi after 126 years
A 126-year-old kiwi-feather cloak, gifted to Dr George Cleghorn in 1900, is being repatriated from Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to the Ngāti Rārua and Ngāti Toa iwi.
In 1900, Hapareta Rore Pukekohatu and Mere te Hiko gave a kiwi-feather cloak to Dr George Cleghorn as thanks for his medical service around Wairau Pā near Blenheim. After Cleghorn’s widow, Helen, loaned the garment to Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum in 1913, it remained there for more than a century. Lorraine Eade, a descendant of the iwi leaders and chair of Ngāti Rārua o Te Wairau Society, located the cloak and coordinated a retrieval mission.
A delegation from the iwi will travel to Oxford to collect the kahu kiwi, after which it will be cared for at Te Papa Tongarewa before being installed at Hauhunga Marae around October 2027, pending the completion of a new wharenui. The repatriation follows a broader iwi effort to catalogue taonga given to colonial officials between 1890 and 1930.
Why it matters
Returning the cloak restores a culturally significant taonga to its rightful Māori owners and supports indigenous heritage preservation.
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