Restitution debates – the question of whether a cultural object should be returned from a museum or other collection to a person or community – often begin with a deceptively simple question: who owns an object?
In colonial contexts, this question rarely has a clear answer. Histories of acquisition are often incomplete, disputed and overwhelmingly recorded from European perspectives. Legal documentation, where it exists at all, usually reflects unequal power relations rather than mutual consent. As a result, many restitution claims cannot be resolved through law alone.
This raises a fundamental question: should the spiritual, social and ancestral significance of an object for its community of origin outweigh unresolved legal arguments about possession?
The case of the Hinematioro pou, which is now being returned from the University of Tübingen to the Māori community Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, illustrates a restitution process grounded in cultural values. It shows what happens when decisions are guided primarily by spiritual meaning and relational responsibility, rather than by legal uncertainty surrounding colonial acquisition.
A pou is a carved wooden pillar that acts as a marker for tribal boundaries, stories or ancestors. The Hinematioro pou is an early carved panel depicting a standing ancestral figure.
For the Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, the pou is neither a historical artefact nor a work of art in the western sense. It is the material presence of an ancestor, Hinematioro, who was an ariki (high-ranking leader). The pou is part of a living social order, not a testimony to a distant past.
Within Māori cultural logic, such an object is a taonga: a treasure that carries not only material, but also spiritual, social and genealogical value. Taonga possess mana and mauri – agency and life force – and require ritual relationships as well as responsibility.
This meaning became clear when the pou returned in 2019, for the first time in over 250 years, to Ūawa (Tolaga Bay). It was met with a formal pōwhiri (welcome ceremony) with singing, speeches, tears and embraces – as if a long-absent relative had come home.
Witnessing this special moment made us and many others who were part of the event understand that the question of the pou’s future location is not a museological one for the community, but an existential one. It is not about possession, but about relationship.
How the taonga came to Germany
It is not possible to conclusively reconstruct how the taonga came to Europe. What is certain is that, in October 1769, it was taken from Ūawa to Europe aboard the HMS Endeavour during James Cook’s first Pacific voyage.
The panel is widely regarded as one of the earliest surviving carved pou associated with Māori chiefly genealogies to have entered European collections. This occurred within a colonial context of profound power asymmetries.