Shrunken heads, exotic artefacts entice visitors
FROM a fearsome stuffed lion to an Egyptian mummy and a witchdoctor’s cape made of monkey tails, a treasure-trove of childhood thrills was stored in Wellington’s Dominion Museum.
For 60 years the noble stone edifice stoked young imaginations from its imposing site in Mt Cook, until Te Papa became New Zealand’s national museum in 1996.
The Dominion Museum opened to great fanfare in 1936 as a replacement for Wellington’s original museum, an ageing, damp, overstuffed wooden building in Museum St, near Parliament.
‘‘The whole collection might be destroyed by fire in a single night, to the eternal disgrace of New Zealand,’’ The Evening Post complained in 1914.
World War I delayed plans for a replacement, but fundraising began in earnest in 1928. The government pledged £100,000 ($9 million in today’s money) and, incredibly, Wellingtonians then matched that sum with donations. Fundraising efforts were no doubt spurred by the thought that Mt Cook Gaol, a universally loathed monolith, would be demolished to build the museum.
‘‘Many efforts had been made to remove the blot upon the city, but the gaol persisted, the first thing that the visitor to Wellington saw and asked about,’’ Wellington Mayor George Troup said in September 1928.
‘‘Wellington now proposes to rise to higher things, and instead of a gaol is going to place emblems of art and science in the National Museum and Art Gallery upon that magnificent site.’’
By 1933 work had begun on the museum foundations, a job made difficult when the tough old jail bricks showed ‘‘remarkable persistence’’ to picks and shovels, and could be removed only with pneumatic drills.
While laying the foundation stone in April 1934, governor-general Charles Bathurst, Lord Bledisloe, expressed hope the museum would display only the finest artefacts.
‘‘The amount of utter rubbish which clogs the walls and showcases of numerous picture galleries and museums throughout the civilised world is a testament to the generosity of wouldbe benefactors and the good nature of weak trustees,’’ he said. ‘‘This has done positive injury to the progressive advance of scientific knowledge and the widespread development of cultural taste.’’
He needn’t have worried – the hundreds of objects installed in the museum from January 1936 were guaranteed to provoke wonder and interest. Flocks of stuffed exotic birds flew over a Mississippi alligator and beloved Wellington Zoo lion King Dick, turned stony and silent under the taxidermist’s knife.
‘‘Regal even in death he gazes at some of the lesser animals across the passageway,’’ the Post said.
Glass cases were devoted to botany, geology and exotic human artefacts.
‘‘An Egyptian mummy lies in mouldering bandages, uncanny decay that revives memories of Edgar Allan Poe, but in contrast, a step or so away, the sunshine is wresting lively twinkles from sparkling sulphur crystals,’’ the Post said.
Captain Cook’s relics were freed from storage, the collection boasting wicker helmets that provoked a theory about Greek traders visiting the Pacific.
In another corner hung ‘‘gorgeous silk robes’’ embroidered with dragons, once worn by Japanese nobles.
Hundreds of monkey tails formed a witch doctor’s cape from the British colony of Nyasaland – now part of Malawi – accompanied by a ‘‘magic bone’’ the shaman used to kill his enemies.
‘‘Probably the most gruesome of the exhibits are two dried Maori heads, with shocks of black and auburn hair, teeth, and eyebrows,’’ the Post said.
The museum even had a ghost. When the wind blew, a blood-chilling noise penetrated even thick dust-proof doors, according to the newspaper.
‘‘It may be Maori. There is certainly something of the tangi in it. On the other hand, it may well be that on the haft of one of the ancient tomahawks in the glass cases there is the blood of an Irishman, which would account for the keening note.’’
New Zealand taonga took pride of place in the museum’s central Maori Hall. The public got an early chance to see great Whanganui war waka Teremoe in April 1936 when it was wheeled to the museum through central Wellington.
Otaki women employed to weave tukutuku panels for the museum hopped in for a joyride, despite the cultural disapproval of their boss Apirana Ngata.
The museum was finally opened to the public on August 1, 1936 and immediately attracted ‘‘phenomenal’’ crowds – 12,000 visitors in a single weekend that month, the Post reported.
The imposing classical building, faced in Putaruru stone, was a tribute to the Wellingtonians who gave freely of their time, money and energy for such a worthy cause, governor-general George Monckton-Arundell said at the opening.
‘‘It will provide you and your children in your leisure hours with most interesting recreation, food for thought, and, I hope, the inspiration to do great things.’’
Today the Dominion Museum is a Massey University design campus, although a scheme was proposed in 2014 to turn it into a national war museum. GET THE BOOK The Dominion Post – 150 Years of News is available via dompost.co.nz or 0800 50 50 90. Priced at $34.95 + $3 postage and handling or $29.95 + $3 p&h for subscribers.