Dr Gerard O’Regan
Speaker at Rotary Meeting on 3 September 2026
Gerard is the curator Māori at the Otago Museum, a position he has held for the last five years. He spoke to us on the topic of Māori Rock Art. There are sites of rock art throughout the country. So far there have been 160 North Island sites and 760 South Island sites discovered. Often there are multiple images at each site. Some have been carved as recently as the 1980’s such as at Taupo. Art is often specific to particular environments. Images of footprints are only found in the North Island. Carvings or paintings of canoes are also more common in the North Island, whereas the South Island has more bird and animal images. Red ochre is used to create painted images.
There is to be an exhibition of rock art at the Otago Museum next year. Gerard has been awarded a fellowship from the N Z Royal Society which will fund his research work for the next four years.
Gerard shared some of the South Island Rock Art images that he showed and identifed the various locations where they were found. The rock art image shown in Gerard's photo above for example, is a digital enhancement of a red painted tiki (human) with head ornamentation – possible feathers in the hair. Dribbles show the red ochre paint was very runny when applied. It is located in a small cave inland from Moeraki was said to have been marked for what iwi understood was the inland boundary of the historic Kemp Purchase land sale.
The image below is ‘The first recording of the famous Opihi taniwha rock painting by Augustus Hamilton in 1897’.
Click here to view some of the images and information of selected South Island rock art that Gerard shared with us.
