Author Dr Rachel Buchanan joins The Score to discuss her new book Te Motunui Epa, which follows the centuries long journey of five Taranaki carvings. After being buried in a swamp for safekeeping by the Taranaki, the five carvings resurfaced in the 1970s and were sold to a prominent Swiss-Bolivian collector who became locked in a decades-long legal battle with the New Zealand government about ownership of the items. While the carvings were eventually returned to the Taranaki people by the collector’s children (for a price), the book explores the impacts this case had on issues of New Zealand sovereignty and the repatriation of stolen objects from museums and private collections.

Te Motunui Epa is out now through Bridget Williams Books.