About the recent return of ancestral objects to the Fare Iamanaha. Maamaatuaiahutapu's policy and the new life of the presumed fragment of maro 'ura

In 2022 and 2023, seventeen ancient Polynesian objects returned to the Te Fare Iamanaha – Musée de Tahiti et des Îles (French Polynesia) for its reopening after a five-year renovation period. At the time, the local minister for Culture, Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu, had asked for the temporary return of these objects. According to him, their intrinsic relational quality can be reinforced thanks to temporary returns home which enable the “recharging of their mana”. When going back to their host museums in Europe, they become “ambassadors” of Polynesian people. My paper will first analyse Maamaatuaiahutapu’s policy and its inspiration and give an overview of other local opinions on the futures of Polynesian displaced objects.
My research also focuses on the aftermath of the return of two of the seventeen objects, one of them being a presumed fragment of maro ‘ura (Tahiti) deposited by the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. The fragile and complex materiality of this object contrasts with the memories of maro ‘ura, remembered as long and blazing feathered girdles. I will therefore also present the different local reactions to this object which oscillate between acceptance of its identity as a fragment of maro ‘ura and its reidentification as something else.