"Body Snatching" in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand: A legal conflict between cultures

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: 1,00, University of Otago (Law), course: LL.M., language: English, abstract: In recent years, there have been several high profile instances where Māori whānau1 have taken the body of a loved one against the wishes of other immediate family members for the purposes of burying the relative on ancestral land. A high profile incident occurred in 1995, with the uplifting of the entertainer Billy T. James’ body from his home by his uncle, so that, in accordance with Māori custom, the body could lie on a marae2 for a period of mourning. Since the Billy T. James case,3 there have been a number of so-called “body snatching” incidents including the “snatching” of the body of John Takamore, and the “snatching” of the body of Tina Marshall-McMenamin.