The Oriental Museum at the University of Durham has returned a traditional Pauku Māori war cloak to New Zealand for a five-year exhibition at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, according to a press release issued on 11 December 2025. How the cloak came to be in the UK is unclear; it was initially loaned to the museum by the Trevelyan family in the 1960s, then donated in 1971, but had remained in storage for decades before being rediscovered. Pauki cloaks are incredibly rare, with the discovery of the Durham cloak bringing the number known to exist to five.
A Pauku cloak was not a conventional cloak work primarily as a garment, but instead was used as a shield in battle, worn over one arm and held in front of the body. As such it was made of heavy fabric, specifically a tightly woven single-pair weft twined cloth called whatu patahi, and often soaked in water or mud, making it able to absorb much of the energy of a blow. Unfortunately, such cloaks offered little protection against firearms, and are not thought to have been manufactured since the eighteenth century.
The Durham cloak has a wā pōkere border design, popular in the seventeenth century and not previously seen on a Pauku Cloak. This design has a black background, representing the primal void, and a pattern representing the emergence of the world from this.
The cloak will be on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for five years, as part of an exhibition funded by the British Council and Creative New Zealand, as part of the Connections Through Culture program. During this time it will be studied by researchers and traditional weavers, and a decision will be made as to where it will be permanently located.
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