A California museum will return 20 artefacts of cultural significance to a First Nations community in the NT.
It follows three years of negotiations between the University of California’s Fowler Museum and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra.
The items will be returned to the Warumungu community of Tennant Creek, a regional town about halfway between Alice Springs and Darwin.
Artefacts returning to the NT
The items being returned include clubs, knives, and a boomerang.
Half of the items were given to the Fowler Museum by private collectors, while the other half were from pharmaceutical entrepreneur Henry Wellcome, who collected medical artefacts.
The Wellcome Collection, a London museum which has displayed artefacts he collected, says many “were unjustly taken from the people and communities who made them” and sold to him at auction.
The artefacts will be temporarily held at AIATSIS before being permanently moved to the Nyinkka Nyunyu Arts and Cultural Centre in Tennant Creek.
Warumungu community members who were involved in the return of items say it’s a significant part of cultural preservation.
“A lot of those artefacts that museums have went before us and we didn’t even see them, but we know what they’ve been used for and how important it is… Us Elders we can teach young mob about those things they can’t just learn whitefella stuff, they got to learn our ways too, our culture.”
Senior Warumungu Man, Michael Jones Jampijinpa
