Te Motunui Epa

By Rachel Buchanan

This stunning book examines how five interconnected carved panels, Te Motunui Epa, have journeyed across the world and changed practices, understanding and international law on the protection and repatriation of stolen cultural treasures.

The story begins in the early 1800s in Peropero swamp, just north of Waitara. Taranaki was teetering on the edge of what would be almost a century of war, and Te Ātiawa hapū moved quickly to dismantle their most important public buildings and hide significant pieces in the swamps. The epa – serpentine figures carved in five tōtara panels – went to sleep, only to awaken one hundred and fifty years later to hands that would take them to New York, Geneva, London and the Royal Courts of Justice.