Tattooed Maori Head - Body Part or Art? - General Tiki

CV Carmine Verandah Grand Member (1 year) Denver area Joined: Oct 23, 2007 Posts: 107	CV Carmine Verandah Posted posted on Wed, Nov 14, 2007 6:47 PM Ripley's Believe or Not (headquartered in Florida) claims to have the world's largest collection of heads, shrunken and otherwise. Many of them probably originated as the result of Western greed for bizarre colonialist souvenirs. Seems to moi the original purpose of the Maori decapitation was spiritual in nature. The museum could easily make a copy if it if the art is so all-fired important, and return the head to the Maori people. After all, it's a pretty dicey bit of art that can't be publicly displayed and is accessible only to a "few specialists." What else falls into that suspicious category? Antique porn? I predict this will eventually go as it did over the museum possession of Native American remains in the name of anthropology. Or those horrid Nazi artifacts of recycled concentration camp victims' skins. Ick. [ Edited by: Carmine Verandah 2007-11-14 18:49 ]

Ripley's Believe or Not (headquartered in Florida) claims to have the world's largest collection of heads, shrunken and otherwise. Many of them probably originated as the result of Western greed for bizarre colonialist souvenirs.

Seems to moi the original purpose of the Maori decapitation was spiritual in nature. The museum could easily make a copy if it if the art is so all-fired important, and return the head to the Maori people. After all, it's a pretty dicey bit of art that can't be publicly displayed and is accessible only to a "few specialists." What else falls into that suspicious category? Antique porn?

I predict this will eventually go as it did over the museum possession of Native American remains in the name of anthropology. Or those horrid Nazi artifacts of recycled concentration camp victims' skins. Ick.

[ Edited by: Carmine Verandah 2007-11-14 18:49 ]

Post #343936 by Carmine Verandah on Wed, Nov 14, 2007 6:47 PM