‘Ultimate honour’: remains of hundreds of Moriori returned in biggest repatriation yet

Remains returned from UK Natural History Museum as well as from across New Zealand, a century after being dug up as curiosities by explorers

The skeletal remains of more than 100 Moriori ancestors, the Indigenous people of Rkohu - or the Chatham Islands - have been returned to the tribe from the UK, as part of the largest single repatriation of Moriori remains to date.

The ancestral remains, or karpuna in Moriori dialect, were unceremoniously dug up by colonisers to be traded as curiosities and, for up to 100 years since, have sat in collections in London's Natural History Museum and across Aotearoa New Zealand.