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Ancestral bones to return to Australia

By Dave Gershman

17 June 2004 - Ted Bailey loved boomerangs, not bones. So when the bones of four Australian Aborigines turned up in a box of artifacts sent to him nearly 20 years ago, the Ann Arbor resident decided to find somebody who wanted them.

He never thought it would lead to this.

On Wednesday, Bailey looked on as two Australian Aborigines took possession of the bones in a solemn ceremony organized by the University of Michigan.

To collectors, the bones might be a curiosity. To the Aborigines, who flew to Detroit on Sunday, the bones represent their ancestors and are a haunting reminder of brutalities and indignities suffered at the hands of the continent's European settlers.

Bob Weatherall, one of the Aborigines, said the search to recover the remains is spiritual and part of a battle to preserve their culture.

"We are fighting and trying very hard to be able to maintain these customs and beliefs," he said.

The bones are believed to be the remains of four Aborigines, one of whom lived 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

This much is certain: Wednesday's ceremony was the product of extraordinary happenstance. It wouldn't have occurred without a Cleveland man who couldn't sell boomerangs fast enough, Bailey's decision that the bones shouldn't be part of his collection, and the world-wide reach of the Internet auction site eBay.

For the Aborigines, the ceremony need not have occurred at all, if not for the original crime that started their journey - the grave robbing that occurred while a road was being built in Australia.

"It may have been an accidental find," Weatherall said. "But the theft was premeditated."

When the bones left Australia, and how they got into the hands of the collector in Cleveland, is still being determined.

Bailey's role began in 1986 when he sold the Cleveland collector, who was then in his 60s, a number of boomerangs. Bailey was fascinated by them, and became a specialist in building high-tech boomerangs.

After the collector couldn't pay Bailey for the boomerangs, the two men agreed to a swap, and a box of Australian artifacts arrived at Bailey's house.

Bailey was surprised to see the bones among the items. Bones didn't interest Bailey, who also didn't realize they were so culturally sensitive. In 1999, Bailey got the idea to put them up for auction on eBay, to see if anybody else had an interest in them.

"They were on there for about a day," he said, "and I started getting e-mail from Aborigines who were very upset about it."

Bailey was ready to mail the remains to whomever wanted them in Australia, but he quickly heard from an Australian government official. You can't just mail human remains, said the official, who suggested giving them to an intermediary, C. Loring Brace, the curator of biological anthropology at U-M's Museum of Anthropology. Brace is well known for being able to identify remains.

Once at U-M, scholars examined them. There were some clues that came with the remains, which consisted of a leg bone, arm bone, skull and skull fragment, all from different people. One bone is quite old. The others are believed to be much younger.

A tag in the box led scholars to believe one bone was once kept in an Australian medical school.

The bones were never displayed or considered part of U-M's collection; they were kept locked away while the transfer was arranged.

It wasn't easy. A turnover in staff at U-M and among the university's contacts in Australia delayed efforts to return the bones. Complicating the transfer was its novelty. Finally, U-M renewed its efforts with vigor in September. The Australians then contacted Weatherall, whose organization, called Bubbunj, seeks the return and burial of Aboriginal remains.

There are thousands of remains of Aborigines in institutions in Australia, as well as more than 5,000 in the United Kingdom and 2,000 in the United States, Weatherall said. In many cases, the bones were used in scientific studies without the consent of relatives. Some Aborigines were killed for these studies, he said.

This was only the third time Aboriginal remains had been "repatriated" from the United States to Australia.

In an earlier case, the remains of Jimmy Tambo were returned in 1994. Tambo had been one of nine Aborigines removed from Australia in 1883 and put into the Barnum and Bailey's Circus, U-M scholars say. He died in 1884 at 23 years old. After being mummified, his body was put on display at a Cleveland museum, and found many years later in the basement of a Cleveland funeral home.

The subject of returning native remains and artifacts is a hot-button issue in this country, as well as Australia.

Congress passed legislation in 1990 that required museums to notify Native American communities of artifacts in their collections. U-M curators turned over four objects, including an Apache headdress. The issue is just as emotionally charged in Australia.

"We know they're being left in plastic bags, in boxes, in vaults," said Weatherall of Aboriginal remains. "They were taken without the consent or direction of their relatives."

Two of the bones will be returned to the land of Weatherall's people, the Gummaliroi, in eastern Australia. The other two were those of members of the Yorta Yorta people, and will be returned to southeastern Australia.

Henry Atkinson, who accompanied Weatherall, is a member of the Yorta Yorta and has been involved in prior repatriations. The burial ceremonies, he said, might be the first for these ancestors.

"Some of these people never even had a burial," Atkinson said.

Dave Gershman can be reached at dgershman@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6818.

Source: Ann Arbor News(USA)

Private Collection of Aboriginal Ancestral Remains Repatriated

Bubbunj Pty Ltd.
Media release

17 June 2004 - A private collection of Aboriginal ancestral remains are being retrieved from Michigan University this week by an Australian Aboriginal delegation. This is the third only repatriation of Aboriginal human remains from America.

The delegation departed Sydney on 12 June and will this week meet with officials at Michigan University and local Indigenous groups in Michigan before taking control of remains of four Aboriginal people who passed away between 20 and 15 000 years ago. They arrive in Canberra on 19 June and will accompany the remains to the National Museum for a press conference pending repatriation of the remains to their communities of origin.

The delegation includes: Mr Henry Atkinson, a Yorta Yorta man from Victoria; and, Mr Bob Weatherall, a Gamiliroi man from south-west Queensland.

The remains have been in the possession of a private collector from Ann Arbor, Michigan who acquired them at a boomerang-throwing tournament in Cleveland, Ohio in 1987. The remains were then donated to Michigan University in 1999.

The first repatriation from America was in 1994 the remains of a man from Palm Island were returned by the Cleveland Museum in Ohio where his body was put on show. The remains were repatriated to the Muinanjali people of Palm Island, Queensland.

Bubbunj Pty Ltd has been engaged by ATSIS to coordinate the repatriation from Michigan to Australia. Bubbunj Director Mr. Weatherall said: "There will be no spiritual peace 'till all our Ancestors are returned to their traditional homelands."

On July 5, 2000, the Australian and British government released a Prime Ministerial Joint Statement on Aboriginal Remains that agreed to increase efforts to repatriate human remains to Australian indigenous communities. In doing this, the governments recognised the special connection that indigenous people have with ancestral remains, particularly where there are living descendants.

Mr. Weatherall said in reference to the joint statement, "We would like them to extend the same degree of formality with the United States Government as they have British Government. A Joint Statement on the treatment of our Ancestors will ensure appropriate protocols are followed. There are still many hundreds of our Ancestors to be returned home from America and we want to make sure that they are treated with the maximum amount of dignity befitting for their place in our culture".

Bob Weatherall and Henry Atkinson will return the Ancestral Remains to the National Museum of Australia, Canberra in a press conference to be held on 19 June 2004.

Source: Bubbunj Pty Ltd.

Further information: repatriation issues page - includes news index and external links

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