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Britain pressed to return Aboriginal bones

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

5 July 2000 - Australia's prime minister, John Howard, yesterday took the opportunity of a visit to Downing Street to press Tony Blair for help in persuading British museums and universities to repatriate the remains of more than 2,000 aborigines.

The bones were taken by British scientists from the 18th century up until the 1920s and 30s. The Australian high commission said yesterday that Aboriginal organisations wanted them back because their ancestors would find no peace until they were buried in their homelands.

Museums in Europe have been secretive about whether they have bones and in what quantities - some from lack of proper cataloguing, others fearing such requests from indigenous peoples; some custodians argue that the scientific value of the bones outweighs their cultural significance.

Downing Street said that Mr Blair would give the request "a fair wind" but no firm commitment was made.

The department of culture, media and sport said that museums were generally forbidden by law to return items, constrained either by their trustees or acts of parliament; however, the department drew a distinction between human remains and artefacts such as the Elgin Marbles which Greece wants returned. A change to the 1983 National Heritage Act would be considered.

A decision could be announced when the culture secretary, Chris Smith, visits Australia for the Olympics in September. Aboriginal organisations have threatened to protest at the games, unhappy at the failure of Mr Howard's government to apologise for the treatment of their people over two centuries.

Mr Howard, who saw Mr Blair at Downing Street, was in Britain to mark the centenary of Australia becoming a federation.

Tony Eggleton, chief executive of the national council for the centenary of federation, said there were various bones round the country. "We are not expecting miracles overnight. It would be a good gesture to the indigenous population to have them collated and returned. Having forebears remain overseas and unrecognised is painful for them."

The remains would be buried in their homelands, and those that could not be identified could be placed in a shrine to be built in Canberra, if the Aboriginal organisations agreed.

Neil Chalmers, director of the Natural History Museum at Kensington in London, said the issue should be seen in context: the museum had 68m items, of which 20,000 were human remains from round the world. Of these 448 were from Australia.

Some 340 of the 448 items were digits, leg bones, skulls and other parts, rather than complete skeletons, he said. Australia estimates that between 15 to 20% of the remains in Britain are identifiable, but Dr Chalmers said that those in the museum could not be traced to a named individual with known living descendants.

He said some remains were known to have come from Queensland but the regional location of most of them was unknown.

The parts were used to study human origins and evolution, human diversity, diet and disease. "We can do this because we have the whole collection together," he said. Asked if the scientific benefits outweighed the cultural ones, he said: "The scientific benefits are global in their importance."

Dr Chalmers hoped there could be a way of reconciling the scientific and the cultural, with perhaps a sacred area in the museum or the remains being taken to Australia but being available for further scientific research.

The law in Scotland is different, and museums and universities are freer to dispose of their assets. A spokesman for Edinburgh University said that its historical anatomy collection had handed over Aboriginal remains to Australia a fortnight ago; they had gone to a university in Canberra until a decision was taken on where they went next.

Over the past decade the university had returned eight moko mokai (shrunken heads) to the Maoris, nine Tasmanian Aboriginal skulls, and a Tasmanian Aboriginal hair sample. The university adopted a sensitivity to indigenous claims in 1990.

Sally James Gregory writes: The extent and whereabouts of Aboriginal remains in Britain is unknown. The Australian high commission estimates there are between 2,000 and 2,500 remains.

• The Natural History Museum in London has 20,000 remains from round the world, of which 448 are from Australia. Australian ones include 340 digits, leg bones, skulls and other parts rather than whole skeletons. Museum says collection has huge scientific importance and compromise has to be negotiated
• British Museum, London houses collection of roughly 30 objects from Aboriginal sources. The only human remains are incorporated into artefacts, eg amulets with knucklebones and decorated skulls
• Royal College of Surgeons, London has small number of skulls remaining from a much larger collection, including skeletons, held until the building was bombed in 1941. After the war most of the remains were transferred to the Natural History Museum. It has a policy of return of named individuals but has no names relating to any remains held
• Horniman Museum, London had some remains in the original collection but a previous director removed them from display and offered to return them. For 10 years they have been packed away awaiting an official request
• According to the World Archeological Bulletin the following have remains:
  Oxford University Museum, Oxford Institute of Biological Anthropology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Duckworth Osteological Collection at the University of Cambridge

Clip from Guardian Unlimited

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