The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) has been researching collections of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage material (not human remains) held in overseas institutions.

The Return of Cultural Heritage team has so far discovered almost 350 institutions holding Australian First Nation’s cultural heritage material, and has contacted around 200 of those already.  Of these, many have been openly willing to work with us, which has eventually narrowed this wealth of possibility to a number of past returns and current return requests: Illinois State Museum (USA), Manchester Museum (UK), two private collectors in the UK, the Israel Museum, the Kluge-Ruhe in the USA, Aberdeen in Scotland and Auckland and Otago in New Zealand.

Communities are very appreciative and excited to have their cultural heritage returned.

“As one of the ceremonial leaders of Central Australia, I am, on behalf of the senior ceremonial Elders of Central Australia and beyond, very happy to hear and see that the artefacts will be coming back to the original beds and caves where they will sleep for the rest of their time. It will bring back power and strength for our Dreamtime constitution. The men of the desert will be very grateful for the objects returning back home.”

Aranda Senior Ceremonial Elder, Braydon Kanjira

 

Many of the items returned will be used in ceremonies over the coming months and years.

Currently on the research side of the program we are looking at online catalogues and trying to understand if institutions like yours hold Australian Indigenous collections. We are interested in all sorts of documentary heritage, including film, photographs, recordings and written primary sources.

Of course our program ultimately concerns the return of some such materials to their home communities, but we have many other goals we’d like to achieve, such as creating a better understanding of which objects around the world are connected with which communities. It is a sad fact that many Australian First Nations’ communities have no idea where objects and other documentary cultural heritage materials such as photographs and field note books have been housed in overseas institutions.  We are also interested in assisting the development of relationships between relevant Indigenous communities and overseas institutions which hold their cultural heritage materials. You are one of the institutions worldwide about whom we would like to know more.

The final report of the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage project was concluded in June 2020.  The project had successful outcomes and some interesting findings and I hope you all enjoy reading the report.  The very best news is that in June the Australian government agreed to fund the work for a further 4 years, making an AU$10.1 million investment that will carry through until June 2024.  Our remit has been expanded to include private collectors and collections held by governments as well as cultural institutions and universities.

If your institutions holds collections of Aboriginal and /or Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage you may add them to our database.  If you don’t actually hold any such Australian cultural heritage items we’d also like to hear that so we can make it clear in our records.

I’m also wondering if the Museum has any repatriation policy, either formal or informal. We are also trying to build a database of policy and legislation from around the world.

The link to our organisation is:   https://aiatsis.gov.au/about/what-we-do/return-cultural-heritage  It provides some resources, videos, etc. as well as the project and community reports so far.  We update the page about returns as they happen and try to keep it interesting and informative.

Lyndall Ley
Executive Director

Return of Cultural Heritage
P (02) 6246 1126 M 0434 449 048
E lyndall.ley@aiatsis.gov.au

aiatsis.gov.au

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies