A turning point: New Zealand museums grapple with return of stolen Māori remains

New Zealand has long fought to have indigenous remains held overseas returned - now it's reckoning with its own colonial legacy

In 2009, whina Twomey received a phone call from a friend and member of her Rangitne o Wairau iwi (tribe), asking if she could be in the South Island by 4am the following Saturday. She baulked at the early start, but then she heard the reason: Canterbury Museum had agreed to repatriate her tpuna (ancestors), or kiwi tangata (ancestral remains) to her iwi.

It had taken the iwi 70 years of battling the museum, and now their ancestors were coming home.