Museum returning items to owners in Northern Territory

A BOOMERANG, an adze and a selection of stone knives are among six Warumungu objects Otago Museum is returning to their traditional owners in Australia’s Northern Territory.

It has been more than a century since they were first acquired in Tennant Creek, by telegraph station master James Field and Britishborn anthropologist Baldwin Spencer.

They came to Otago Museum through exchanges with Museum Victoria and anthropologist Frederick Vincent Knapp.

Museum director Dr Ian Griffin said repatriation to indigenous communities was becoming an evermore important part of the role of a modern museum.

‘‘In recent years, supported by the Maori Advisory Committee, the museum’s Trust Board has embedded its support for the cultural property clauses of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which calls for providing access to and repatriation of ceremonial objects and ancestral remains, where appropriate.

‘‘In this case, the museum board reviewed the request for repatriation and decided that it was right to return the taoka,’’ he said.

Senior Warumungu man Michael Jones thanked the museum for its response.

‘‘Them old things, they were carved by the old people who had the songs for it too.

‘‘I’m glad these things are returning back.

‘‘The museums are respecting us. They weren’t the ones who took them, they just ended up there.’’

He said they could be used to teach the community’s young people about ‘‘these old things and our culture’’.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Return of Cultural Heritage team initiated consultation between Warumungu elders and the Otago Museum’s Maori Advisory Committee to discuss the return of the items. — Additional reporting: AAP