The mummified, tattooed heads of 20 Maori, which were taken to Europe in the 1800s, will finally be welcomed back to New Zealand.
Intrigued French explorers took the heads or toi moko back to their homeland as souvenirs.
The remains were held in 10 institutions across France for many decades.
A powhiri will be held at the Te Papa museum marae on January 26 to welcome the toi moko.
They will be held at Te Papa until their ancestry is traced and plans can be made to return them to their spiritual home.
In Maori tradition important members of a tribe would have their heads mummified.
These would then be kept in a sacred place and brought out during special events, a Te Papa spokesman told NZ Newswire.
A head was removed from the body, then buried and cooked in an earth oven.
A handover ceremony of the toi moko will be take place at Musee du Quai Branley, which held seven of the 20 heads, in Paris on January 23.
Te Papa and heads of the French museum will sign a document of understanding to formalise and maintain the relationship between the two museums.
French Minister of Culture and Communication will be present at the event.
About 180 toi moko and koiwi tangata (skeletal remains) have been repatriated from several countries by Te Papa since 2003 through the museum's Karanga Aotearoa programme.
The recent restitution follows a four-year political struggle in France which ended in 2010 when a law was approved allowing the return of all ancestral remains to New Zealand.
Archaeology/History
News RSS Feed
NZN