A Māori flute made from Tibetan human remains: On global entanglements and reinterpretations

A carved trumpet made from a human femur entered the collection of the Münchner Stadtmuseum in 1965 as: “Knochenflöte, Maori, Neuseeland”. Nevertheless, collaboration with Te Papa Tongarewa, material analyses and the documentation on a similar instrument at the Field Museum Chicago suggest it is neither of Māori origins nor a flute. The British carver and dealer James Edward Little (1876–1953) had embellished a Tibetan kangling, a ritual trumpet made from human remains, with spiral carvings and mother-of-pearl inlays and marketed it as “Māori”. British rule in Aotearoa New Zealand and military operations in Tibet around 1900 wove the colonial entanglements that facilitated this forgery and its reinterpretations. Ongoing analyses of the inlays and an exchange with a cultural advisor for Tibetan material heritage trace how the modification shifted meanings. The talk seeks no universal solution for caretaking, but to address the layers of sensitivity that these human remains entail.