Abel Tasman en de schelptrompet (pūtātara)

In the Abel Tasman Museum (Lutjegast, province of Groningen) a conch horn (pūtātara) is on display, made from the shell of the gastropod Tutufa bubo (Linnaeus, 1758). This Maori instrument was given to a delegation of the municipality of Grootegast that in 2017 payed a visit to New Zealand in commemoration of 375 years of Tasman’s discovery of Van Diemensland, later on named Tasmania, and his voyage to New Zealand and Tonga. This type of horn is considered to have played a role in the first confrontation between Tasman’s ships and Maori people in the South Pacific.