Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Aboriginal bones are being returned to Australia. Where and when will they be reburied?

From The Guardian,
Paul Daley
The Guardian, Friday 13 June 2014:

The bone collectors: a brutal chapter in Australia's past
The remains of hundreds of Aboriginal people, dug up from sacred ground and once displayed in museums all over the world, are now stored in a Canberra warehouse. When will they be given a national resting place?
According to national museum records, in recent decades Indigenous remains have been repatriated to the museum from cultural institutions, including museums, educational facilities, medical schools and private collections in Britain, the United States, Sweden and Austria. Other remains from collections in Berlin, at Washington's Smithsonian Museum, Oxford University and London's Natural History Museum have been repatriated directly to Australian Indigenous communities. The federal government, through the Ministry for the Arts, supports the national museum's Indigenous repatriation programme. Other Australian state and territory institutions also hold significant collections of Indigenous remains and sacred artefacts. All have programmes to return them to country. The government estimates that the remains of as many as 900 Indigenous Australians are still held in institutions in the UK, Germany, France, the US and elsewhere.

Continued here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/aboriginal-bones-being-returned-australia/

Full article here: http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/restless-indigenous-remains/

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