I took my youngest child to Te Papa today (it's the national museum of NZ). I found the whole experience quite boring, though, to be fair, the earthquake room is very cool.
However, I was shocked to find that one of the tree walkway exhibits showing dead bugs in jars had a little blurb up on (paraphrasing here) how Tane, the guardian of the forest provides all these bugs as food from his larder for the creatures of the forest to live on.
Maori mythology is quite interesting from a fairy tale point of view, so my beef is not so much that it is promoted in such a way. It's more that where this little blurb was located was in a scientific portion of the museum, in amongst scientific and verifiable facts about animals and creatures in NZ.
As far as I can tell, no one is seriously proposing that Tane actually exists and provides food for animals in NZ forests. It is accepted as a myth. Yet this museum blurb was not identified as a Maori myth, it was presented in the same way as all the verifiable facts in that portion of the museum.
What next? A display on the attributes of Taniwha complete with a skeletal representation of how one might look? That would certainly be appropriate, what with giant "artworks" on Level 5 of Holy Bible verses on black and grey landscape backgrounds signifying who knows what. Probably in line with the unhappy preacher man holding a book and a cross in the highly stylised modern Maori meeting area.
I liked the old museum. My favourite display was the Ancient Egyptian one. But, the cafe on Level 4, especially the brownies was very nice. So, I suppose Te Papa has something going for it. That and the earthquake room. Maybe eventually Te Papa will be renamed to the high church of Maori spirituality, complete with all the proofs that Tane really does provide food for the creatures of the forests in NZ.
However, I was shocked to find that one of the tree walkway exhibits showing dead bugs in jars had a little blurb up on (paraphrasing here) how Tane, the guardian of the forest provides all these bugs as food from his larder for the creatures of the forest to live on.
Maori mythology is quite interesting from a fairy tale point of view, so my beef is not so much that it is promoted in such a way. It's more that where this little blurb was located was in a scientific portion of the museum, in amongst scientific and verifiable facts about animals and creatures in NZ.
As far as I can tell, no one is seriously proposing that Tane actually exists and provides food for animals in NZ forests. It is accepted as a myth. Yet this museum blurb was not identified as a Maori myth, it was presented in the same way as all the verifiable facts in that portion of the museum.
What next? A display on the attributes of Taniwha complete with a skeletal representation of how one might look? That would certainly be appropriate, what with giant "artworks" on Level 5 of Holy Bible verses on black and grey landscape backgrounds signifying who knows what. Probably in line with the unhappy preacher man holding a book and a cross in the highly stylised modern Maori meeting area.
I liked the old museum. My favourite display was the Ancient Egyptian one. But, the cafe on Level 4, especially the brownies was very nice. So, I suppose Te Papa has something going for it. That and the earthquake room. Maybe eventually Te Papa will be renamed to the high church of Maori spirituality, complete with all the proofs that Tane really does provide food for the creatures of the forests in NZ.