Honouring ancestors: A Māori approach to the Moana Wansolwara Collection at Museums Victoria

Imagine entering a cold, sterile room filled with powder-coated steel shelves and muted colours — a space devoid of life. Yet on these shelves lie ancestors or the belongings of ancestors, resting dormant. For Indigenous peoples, museum collection stores transcend the mere physicality of objects; they are spaces of deep ancestral presence and responsibility. This paper explores the care of the Moana Wansolwara Collection (previously called the Pacific Cultures Collection), housed at Museums Victoria, and the intersection of kaitiakitanga (guardianship), tapu (sacredness), mauri (life principle), and the physical and metaphysical care required to honour taonga (cultural treasures) and ancestral belongings. In doing so, it acknowledges the vast cultural diversity of the Pacific region while recognising the shared values that unite Pasifika people.