Large Fierce Mammal

"Mauri Eye" by Meat Meier

A week ago I encountered a news item that attracted a lot of international attention and no small amount of outrage. It reported that the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa had imposed a ban on admitting pregnant or menstruating women to the behind the scenes tour scheduled to be held 5 November 2010.

According to the aforementioned news item, “An invitation for regional museums to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa’s collections included the condition that ‘wahine (women) who are either hapu [pregnant] or mate wahine [menstruating]’ were unable to attend.” Women are also being encouraged, out of respect for traditional Maori beliefs, to be truthful about their condition if it isn’t otherwise apparent, and to refrain from challenging the ban.

According to museum Communications Manager Jane Keig, the policy was adopted because it was a condition the museum had to sign off on in order to obtain and show the collection, and comes from Maori cultural beliefs regarding the status of pregnant or menstruating women and the potential negative consequences of their being exposed to items in it.

Women who are pregnant or menstruating are considered “tapu” (taboo or forbidden) in Maori culture. Pregnant women, while tapu themselves, and forbidden to perform such tasks as harvesting food, are also considered sacred. Some artifacts in the collection are weapons that have been used to kill people in battle, thus also rendering them tapu. Each artifact is believed to contain its own wairua (spirit) and the policy is intended, therefore, to protect women in the spiritual target group from the double whammy of all that tapu coming together.

Margaret Mutu, head of Maori Studies at Auckland University, told The New Zealand Herald that she stands behind the cultural correctness of the rule saying, “It would be very unwise to put the two up against each other.”