Maori Galleries

Auckland Museum protects and cares for an outstanding and significant collection of Maori treasures (taonga).

Over 1000 taonga are displayed in the main Maori galleries, He Taonga Maori (Maori Court) and Te Ao Turoa (Maori Natural History Gallery) and many more are held in storage. These taonga are the ancestral representations of all the major tribes of Aotearoa. The taonga provide descendants with tangible links to their ancestral landscapes, their history and the people that came before them. They embody spiritual power measured in terms of mana (ancestral authority), tapu (restriction from everyday being) and korero (associated narratives), and these taonga continue to be viewed as key symbols of tribal identity by Maori today.

To get a true sense of the power of these pieces, please visit the Museum and spend some time in the Maori Galleries.  This is a quiet place of reflection, a place where you can start to truly understand the nature and history of the Maori, and Aotearoa, New Zealand. 

HE TAONGA MAORI - MAORI COURT

Visitors to He Taonga Maori (Maori Treasures) are presented with a story that relates the past, the present and something of the future of Maori in New Zealand. This gallery contains over 1000 artefacts from around Aotearoa which date back to the arrival and settlement of Maori.

TE AO TUROA - MAORI NATURAL HISTORY GALLERY

Te Ao Turoa or the Maori Natural History Gallery, has been developed to provide visitors with an opportunity for learning something about Maori knowledge and understanding of what is referred to by others as the natural world.