A collection of ancient Māori gardening tools will be returned to three marae in Northland after they were dug up by a local farmer a decade ago.
Some of the taonga to be returned. Photo: Hinerangi Himiona
The 32 objects were found by Waimate North farmer, the late John Finlayson, from years of ploughing the land.
The taonga will be distributed to Parawhenua, Rawhitiroa and Tauwhara Marae on Saturday.
Chairperson for Parawhenua Marae, Hinerangi Himiona, said she was proud the decade-long process to have the taonga returned was not one of conflict.
"For many cases like this, often there's an argument and a fight over ownership but we have managed to not have to go there.
"We've had enough experience of conflict around things like this so either we're gonna try and get a good outcome for all of us, including the journey through this, or we just leave it."
All three marae will reference the taonga to the Finlayson whānau and their relationship to the artifacts and the land.
Ms Himiona said it was important to acknowledge the modern history of the landscape and those who have cared for it.
"We have this modern history where Pākehā farmers have been big on our landscape since the 1870s, 80s and onwards. So the reality of our land over the last hundred years is that it has been owned and run by largely Pākehā farmers.
"A lot of our grandparents and great-grandparents had worked for those farmers and had great relationships up until a couple of generations ago when people started to go to the city.
"We want to recognise that those neighbors of ours that we have lost a bit of connection with are a really important part of our story."
She said the taonga would be used to educate her people about the technology that their tūpuna used.
"We can refer to them in oratory and we're also looking to have some academic experts from museums over the coming years to really recover some of that information about the technology that our tūpuna used and how we can gain value from that knowledge.
"In the little bit of research we've done we found that there were slightly different angles on tools because of the soil types and different parts of the landscape and that tells us a lot about how familiar our ancestors were with the landscape and the types of growing that they needed to do."
The marae trustees were already planning some ongoing wānanga on gardening, the Maramataka and Matariki.