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British Museum to return Aboriginal remains

25 March 2006 - The Guardian (UK) - The British Museum said yesterday that it would return the cremated ashes of Australian Aborigines, more than 160 years after they were taken.

The museum said it had agreed to a request by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for the return of the remains, acquired in 1838. It said the small bundles of ash wrapped in animal skin had been used by Aborigines to ward off sickness and their acquisition had interrupted "a process which would have ultimately led to the remains being laid to rest".

Their cultural and religious importance "outweighed any other public benefit" from their being kept in London.

Source: The Guardian (UK)

Historic Victory for Tasmanian Aborigines

24 March 2006 - Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Media Release - In an historic victory for Tasmanian Aborigines, the Trustees of the British Museum yesterday decided to return to Tasmania the first Aboriginal human remains to be repatriated from a public museum in Britain.

Tasmanian Aborigines are very happy with this decision to return the two bundles of cremation ashes of our ancestors. These bundles were made to contain ashes remaining after the cremation of the dead, and were worn on the body as talismans against pain, sickness and ill fortune.

The journals of George Augustus Robinson, ‘Protector of Aborigines’, recount how he took the bundles from sick Aborigines as they were dying or after their death, despite their refusals to part with them.

These two bundles are the only two now known to exist. They passed from Robinson’s collection to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1882, and then to the British Museum. Tasmanian Aborigines have been asking for their return since 1985, but the Museum have always told us that their policy of the ‘presumption of retention’ of all material in their collections overrode all ethical and humanist considerations.

The passing of the Human Tissue Bill 2005 allows British public museums to now deaccession human remains out of their collections.

This historic occasion – the first British public Museum to return human remains to Aborigines - fulfills the intention of the joint Howard and Blair Prime Ministerial statement of 2000, supporting the repatriation of Australian Aboriginal ancestral remains from the UK.

Now the British museum has made this landmark action, we look forward on behalf of all Aborigines to the release of all Aboriginal human remains from all British public museums.

This is the culmination of the ongoing campaign that Tamanian Aborigines have waged through the TAC since 1976, when we were successfully reclaimed the remains of Trukanini from the Tasmanian Museum, and cremated and scattered them in the d’Entrecasteaux Channel.

Source: Trudy Maluga, State Secretary, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre

British Museum decides to return two Tasmanian cremation ash bundles

24 March 2006 - British Museum Media Release - The passing of the Human Tissue Act in 2005 enabled the Trustees of the British Museum and other national museums to transfer human remains out of their collections.

The Museum’s Trustees had long recognised that human remains from the modern period represent a special case raising particularly difficult issues. The Museum was therefore fully and positively engaged with the process which led to the drafting of the relevant clause of the new law.

The Trustees have welcomed this new power which has enabled them for the first time to give serious consideration to a claim made for two cremation ash bundles. The claim is made by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre: the TAC has made several previous claims which could not be considered until the law was changed in 2005. The Trustees are therefore pleased to announce that, at their meeting today, they have decided to transfer the two Tasmanian Aboriginal cremation ash bundles to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in response to the claim from the Centre made last year.

The two bundles, each containing some ash from a human cremation site, are wrapped in animal skin. They were acquired by George Augustus Robinson in about 1838 (Robinson was appointed as conciliator of Aborigines in Tasmania in 1828). They were taken at a time when the Aboriginal population of Tasmania was suffering greatly from the impact of the European settlement, resulting in substantial population loss. The bundles entered the collection of the British Museum only later via the Royal College of Surgeons in 1882.

Ethnographic evidence collected by Robinson at the time indicates that bundles of this sort were used as amulets against sickness by their owners, and that they were highly valued for their efficacy. Their acquisition by Robinson represented an interruption in the
process which would have ultimately led to the remains being laid to rest.

After taking independent expert advice on the matter, and according to their published policy, the Trustees came to the view that the cultural and religious importance of the cremation ash bundles to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community outweighed any other public benefit that would have flowed from their retention in the collection. The objects have been studied, photographed and published in previous decades. It is unlikely that, given present scientific techniques, their retention in London for study will yield any further information of significance.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, leading human rights lawyer and the Trustee who led the discussion, said, "The Trustees are clear that the removal of the cremation ash bundles from the collection is the right course of action. The Museum looks forward to continuing to work with indigenous Australian communities in furthering the worldwide public understanding of Australian aboriginal culture, both past and present. The British Museum is currently developing a new Australian and Pacific Gallery to open in 2008."

Source: The British Museum

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