Hidden Treasures: The tragedy of the huia uncovered at Canterbury Museum
Thursday, 24 December 2020
Just 1 per cent of Canterbury Museum's collection is on display at any one time. As part of a special series, reporter LEE KENNY and visual journalist JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON went behind the scenes to discover the hidden treasures held in its vast archives.
Like so many love stories, the history of the huia ends in tragedy.
Males and females would work together to find food but their cooperation was used to extol the virtues of marriage – creating demand for stuffed pairs for decorative displays.
Now extinct, the native bird was once common across the North Island but was hunted by both Māori and Europeans for its distinctive plumage.
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Huia feathers were traditionally worn during kapa haka displays, while one given to a future British monarch sparked a fashion for the black and white quills in the early 1900s.
Predatory mammals and deforestation also led to the bird’s extinction and today they are only found as public exhibits or in private collections.
Dr Paul Scofield, senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum, said the close relationship between male and female huia gained the attention of Victorian society.
“Females had a very long beak, whereas the males’ beak was like a woodpecker,” he says.
“One account of their behaviour suggests the male pecked away at the bark of a tree and then the female put her long, thin beak in and pulled out the grubs.”
People wanted a pair of the birds, often sitting on their nest.
“When they were collecting these things, the collector recognised that having a nest would make for a good display,” Scofield says.
“They shot the bird that was on the nest, waited until the other bird turned up, shot that and collected the nest as well.”
The story of the huia was used as a way of edifying the masses.
“That was one of the reasons they were very popular as exchange items. Overseas museums would love a pair of them, so they could tell that story.
“It was actually used as a morality tale by some of the more Christian scientists to say that people should stay together, married through thick and thin.
“Museums in the Victorian era were, to a certain degree, used as a device by the authorities to control the hoi polloi.”
The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907, but they were becoming rare by the 1880s, Scofield says.
“Māori had quite a close association with it, there's a tribe which is called Ngāti Huia.
“Whenever you see kapa haka groups, they have always got a single feather in their hair, which is always one of these feathers.”
However, today it is more common to wear turkey feathers that have been dipped in bleach to make them white at the end, he says.
European interest in huia feathers is said to date back to 1901 when the Duke of York visited New Zealand.
He was presented with one and the sight of the future king wearing it in his hatband prompted a fashion for the black and white quills.
Even today they are highly desirable and in 2010 a single huia feather sold at an Auckland auction for $8400.
“They still come on the market, but they are becoming rarer and rarer,” Scofield says.
The huia was the largest of the five New Zealand wattlebird species and the last were found in the Tararua Range, north of Wellington, which was “probably the most inaccessible large group of forests” in the North Island.
“It's probably one of the best examples of a species that's become extinct due to hunting, although it's still debatable whether it was hunting or habitat loss.
“Huia is among the most recent bird species to become extinct in New Zealand and now the only ones that we find are in museum collections.”
The items listed in this article are not currently on public display.