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From: Pat Frykberg <>
Subject: How will this impact on gen...
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 06:58:03 +1200


Rereading all the comments, especially Delia's usual clear thinking, I'll
admit I jumped in boots and all-

Here in NZ during the early whaling and colonisation days much that was
Maori was bartered,sold or nicked and found its way into foreign private
collections or Museums.
Because so much of this was sacred to the Maori, the Maori elders have been
searching for these "treasures". For example many of their fighting weapons
were family heirlooms made from Greenstone (jade) and had their own
intrinsic "mana". These are now finding their way home.
Just fairly recently some preserved Maori heads were brought back and given
the respect they had lost.
I can see that many cave "Bushman" paintings in RSA have to be protected.
Graves and battlefields too perhaps.But cemeteries are always likely to be
re-used, buldozed over for motorways or just plainly neglected and lost.
Above all protect archive material. It shatters me to think that anyone
would rip out records from files. But this happens in times of war or riots
by violent protestors- or patriotism - eg Kosovo now.
Census returns in NZ are destroyed by the statistics depts when all
relevant figures have been collated. NZ Soc. Gen has persuaded Govt to keep
one (1960something) for 100 years.
Books have been destroyed before now by frenzied fanatics or uncontrolled
rioters.
I think it may almost be better that some treasures are safer away from
unstable societies. I have one or two rare books which I would rather give
to the Sir George Grey Collection in the Auckland Library than return to
an archive in South Africa
This collection has many valuable Africana, with restricted,controlled
access for researchers, and archive controlled storage.
So...a fence sitter I am!
Pat

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Pat Frykberg <>

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