Toi moko, formally known as Mokomokai, are the preserved heads of Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, where the faces have been decorated by tā moko tattooing. They became valuable trade items during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century. Many Toi Moko were taken from their family and homeland as trophies and repatriation efforts are currently underway by Te Papa and Te Herekiekie Haerehuka Herewini to return the Toi Moko to their decedents.

Moko facial tattoos were traditional in Māori culture until about the mid 19th century when their use began to disappear, although there has been something of a revival from the late 20th century. In pre-European Māori culture they denoted high social status. There were generally only men that had full facial moko, though high-ranked women often had moko on their lips and chins.^[1]: 1 Moko tattoos served as identifying connection between an individual and their ancestors.^[2]

Moko marked rites of passage for people of chiefly rank, as well as significant events in their lives. Each moko was unique and contained information about the person's rank, tribe, lineage, occupation and exploits. Moko were expensive to obtain and elaborate moko were usually limited to chiefs and high-ranked warriors. Moreover, the art of moko, the people who created and incised the designs, as well as the moko themselves, were surrounded by strict tapu and protocol.^[1]: 1–3

When someone with moko died, often the head would be preserved. The brain and eyes were removed, with all orifices sealed with flax fibre and gum. The head was then boiled or steamed in an oven before being smoked over an open fire and dried in the sun for several days. It was then treated with shark oil. Such preserved heads, Toi moko, would be kept by their families in ornately carved boxes and brought out only for sacred ceremonies.^[3]

The heads of enemy chiefs killed in battle were also preserved; these Toi moko, being considered trophies of war, would be displayed on the marae and mocked. They were important in diplomatic negotiations between warring tribes, with the return and exchange of mokomokai being an essential precondition for peace.^[1]: 3–4

The term Mokomokai has fallen out of use in favor of Toi Moko due to its connotations with slavery which is not representative of the respect and cultural importance held by these items. The term Toi Moko translated to "the art of tattooing" is more representative of their history. ^[4]

Trading for these heads with Western colonisers apparently began with Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist on HMS Endeavour, where he traded old linen drawers (underwear) for the head of a 14-year-old boy.^[5] The head was traded as a "curio" and a fascination with the heads began to grow. This continued with Mokomokai heads being traded for muskets and the subsequent Musket Wars. During this period of social destabilisation, Toi moko became commercial trade items which could be sold as curios, artworks and as museum specimens which fetched high prices in Europe and America, and which could be bartered for firearms and ammunition.^[1]: 4–5

The demand for firearms was such that tribes carried out raids on their neighbours to acquire more heads to trade for them. While most early Toi moko sold to Europeans were slain warriors, eventually demand from European traders outstripped supply, so the heads of slaves and prisoners were tattooed (though with meaningless motifs rather than genuine moko) in order to provide heads to order.^[6] The peak years of the trade in mokomokai were from 1820 to 1831. In 1831 the Governor of New South Wales issued a proclamation banning further trade in heads out of New Zealand, and during the 1830s the demand for firearms diminished because every surviving group was fully armed. By 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and New Zealand became a British colony, the export trade in mokomokai had virtually ended, along with a decline in the use of moko in Māori society, although occasional small-scale trade continued for several years.^{[1]: 5–6 [7]}

Major-General Horatio Gordon Robley was a British army officer and artist who served in New Zealand during the New Zealand Wars in the 1860s. He was interested in ethnology and fascinated by the art of tattooing. He wrote Moko; or Maori Tattooing, which was published in 1896. After he returned to England he built up a collection of 35 to 40 mokomokai which he later offered to sell to the New Zealand Government. When the offer was declined, most of the collection was sold to the American Museum of Natural History.^[8]

The collection was repatriated to Te Papa Tongarewa in 2014.^[9]

More recently there has been a campaign to repatriate to New Zealand the hundreds of Toi moko held in museums and private collections around the world, either to be returned to their relatives or to the Te Papa for safe and respectful storage, not on display whilst efforts are made to research the individuals heritage and contact their decedents. ^[10] It has had some success, though many Toi moko remain overseas and the campaign is ongoing.^{[8][11][12][13]}

Many international bodies have repatriated Toi Mokos from their collections including institutions in Great Britain, United States of America, Netherlands, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Norway, France, and Austria. The bodies who repatriated their Toi Moko and the dates can be found on Te Papa's website. ^[14]

An example of one of these repatriations comes from the small English seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. In in 1834 a Toi Moko was traded from Kāpiti Island and brought back to England, later to be donated to the museum at Scarborough by Richard Baley Munn, master of the brig ‘Eleanor’ where it stayed, sometimes on display, until 1998 when it was repatriated to Te Papa through the High Commission of New Zealand. Although an important item in the collection of the museum, the knowledge of the Toi Moko was lost after the repatriation and was not uncovered for approx. 40 years when Jacob Smith, intern at the museum from the University of York, rediscovered its history and the journey it took. ^[15]

• Robley, Horatio Gordon (1896). Moko; or Maori Tattooing. London: Chapman and Hall, Limited – via NZETC.

• Mokomokai - the documentary