About this item
- Title
- Karetao (puppet), early 1800s
- Content partner
- Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage
- Collection
- Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Description
The karetao was one of the features of the whare tapere, the earliest form of Māori theatre. The puppeteer held the handle at the base and moved the karetao's arms by pulling a cord that passed through its shoulders. This example, carved from wood, dates from the early 1800s.
- Format
- Image
- Date created
- 14 November 2013
- Contributing partner
- Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- URL
- https://teara.govt.nz/en/object/43324/karetao-puppet-early-1800s
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Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has this to say about the rights status of this item:
http://www.teara.govt.nz/copyright, Crown Copyright administered through the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu Taonga. All text licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence unless otherwise stated. Commercial re-use may be allowed on request. All non-text content is subject to specific conditions. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Reference: ME023983 Permission of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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What can I do with this item?
Check copyright status and what you can do with this item
Check informationReport this item
If you believe this item breaches our terms of use please report this item
Report this itemDigitalNZ brings together more than 30 million items from institutions so that they are easy to find and use. This information is the best information we could find on this item. This item was added on 12 June 2014, and updated 26 November 2025.
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