Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2008
Objects were and still are pivotal in configuring intertribal relationships; and equally, they played a crucial role in negotiating the borders between early colonial situations and Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. This article explores the notion of object efficacy through discussing further relational values such as place, oral and written histories, visionary leadership, and political and culturally defined imperatives, particularly as they contribute to reviving an object's embedded knowledge, in this case the entangled agencies of taonga.