With the development of new understandings about how to care for taonga, we might expect the pathway for Te Māori to have been smooth. But this was the 1980s—not everyone involved was on board with the complexity of the committee structure, or new expectations for iwi consultation. In this respect, Mina truly was the bridge.

Speaking in an interview several years later, Mina characterised her contribution to the Te Māori committee as ‘the bearer of bad news.’ When museum managers made a decision that displeased Māori , she was the messenger. Equally, iwi colleagues trusted her to pass on information that caused frustration with museums – a job Mina found interesting, challenging, and emotional. Correspondence between Mina, Te Māori’s American venues, and her committee colleagues show us a leader whose advice was well-reasoned and gratefully received. For example, in 1986  Mina defied academics and curators when she proposed a correction to a date assigned to taonga in Te Māori, based on her own research. The correction was not made, but statements like “Mina McKenzie is right” make it clear that Mina’s voice was considered an authoritative one.

She also played an important part in getting the Te Māori tour extended to the Field Museum in Chicago, which was not a part of the original tour. American colleagues wrote to Mina to thank her for letters of support and credited her with getting the necessary approvals in Aotearoa. A testament to the extent of her collegial network, Mina already knew John Terrell, the curator at the Field Museum who would be responsible for Te Māori. Mina could confidently endorse Terrell’s skills and was able build the trust needed for colleagues in Aotearoa to support the Chicago tour. She had also visited and studied the Field Museum’s collection – enough to advise those travelling to the opening on which route kaumatua should take through the galleries during the ceremony!

Other examples discovered in this precious archive box here at Te Manawa show Mina a leader who thought critically and quickly, often too fast for her hand to keep up. Handwritten notes embellish the margins of meeting minutes and typed letters are full of cursive corrections. These documents are stacked amongst letters of thanks, requests for Mina’s advice, and countless copies of agendas and minutes that communicate the mountain of work that confronted the Te Māori management committee. It took tenacity to conquer the task of touring Te Māori across the United States of America with the blessing of relevant iwi and museums, at a time when consultation was done via fax, phone, and snail mail!

Mina herself described how the sheer number of people and perspectives involved made Te Māori, at times, “a nightmare” to manage. But from it emerged new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding the taonga in our collections, and a set of role models for a new generation of museum professionals to look up to. Now in 2024, as we engage with new debates about biculturalism, we can see that what Mina and her fellow Te Māori collaborators achieved is not just an important model for the museum world, but for all Aotearoa. We should all be proud to be able to claim Mina McKenzie as a legendary Manawatū leader whose impact was global.