Hard on the heels of the UCLA Fowler Museum’s return of 20 objects to the Warumungu community of Northern Territory, Australia in July, comes news this month of an agreement by London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens to transfer ownership of 10 further Warumungu objects.

Both restitutions highlight the slow but relentless progress of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), a government agency that trawls collections worldwide for relevant objects and is notching up an impressive record for securing returns.

On behalf of the Warumungu community, AIATSIS made a formal request for the return of nine objects held at the Horniman on 3 May 2023. During the discussions with community representatives that followed, it became clear the community could show both a prior and a continuing relationship with these objects, meeting the claim procedures set out in the Museum’s Restitution and Repatriation Policy. This enabled the full board of trustees to support their request for restitution, which was then endorsed by the Museum’s regulator, the Charity Commission (7 February 2024), noting the trustees’ “moral obligations”.

The Warumungu objects, considered of cultural and spiritual significance, will be handed over to an Australian delegation later this year. They include a stone axe (ngurrulumuru), two boomerangs (wartilykirri), a knife (marttan) and a sheath (murkutu). One of the boomerangs has been part of the Museum’s Handling Collection and is additional to the nine objects requested by AIATSIS. Returning this item did not require Charity Commission approval.

“I want to thank them [Horniman Museum] for sending those things back to us. They’ve made a choice to send them back to where they belong. It wasn’t them who collected it, it was their ancestors, so I want to thank them.”

Mr Michael Jones Jampijinpa, Senior Warumungu Man

The Chair of Trustees at the Horniman, Michael Salter-Church, was equally unequivocal why these objects should be returned to their Aboriginal source: “These objects are of the utmost significance for the Warumungu people, and were lost to them in circumstances where they were compelled to sell or give them away. We are pleased to be able to return them to the care of their original community.”

Following their transfer, all ten Warumungu objects will be housed at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre, a regional museum in Tennant Creek, Northern Australia, which is currently undergoing a major A$7m expansion project. The Centre is dedicated to presenting and preserving the Warumungu culture.

Last year, AIATSIS were involved in two other restitution events in the UK. In July, we reported that an agreement was finally reached to return four Aboriginal spears, collected on Lieutenant James Cook’s first landing at Botany Bay in April 1770, from Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The spears were handed over to the La Perouse Aboriginal Community on 23 April this year.

Then in September, Manchester Museum returned 174 personal and domestic cultural objects to the Aboriginal Anindilyakwa community, also in Australia’s Northern Territory. This was the second restitution resulting from a three-year partnership AIATSIS has established with the Manchester Museum.

Like the return of 20 Warumungu objects by the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, these restitutions are the result of the initiative set up by AIATSIS six years ago called ‘Return of Cultural Heritage Programme’. This has involved the agency establishing contact with around 380 institutions worldwide and the return of over 2,200 culturally significant artefacts.

After this was written.....

A handover ceremony of the 10 artefacts to the Warumungu Community took place in September 2024 at the Horniman Museum & Gardens in south-east London The ceremony was attended by Warumungu elders Cliff Plummer Jabarula and William (Bill) Ah Kit Jakamarra. Representatives of AIATSIS were also present. The objects will be held temporarily at AIATSIS in Canberra until the Community is ready to receive them on Country (an Aboriginal term to describe the land, seas and waterways to which the artefacts are connected).

Photo: Mr Michael Jones Jampijinpa, Senior Warumungu Man

Courtesy of AIATSIS