Following a succession of other repatriations by British collections, London's Natural History Museum has taken another step towards returning indigenous human remains to their country of origin. 

Over two stages, the museum has returned 3 bones in the first stage and a further 19 bones in the second stage of a repatriation agreement with the Torres Strait Islanders, whose islands are located between Australia and New Guinea.   

The Museum holds an enormous collection of some 20,000 human remains, the majority (54%) from within the UK and some dating back to prehistoric times. In all, the Torres Strait collection comprises a total of 138 bones from both men and women and ranges from jaws to complete skeletons. Precise details of their context and identities have been lost, as many of the bones were bought as objects of curiosity and were traded among sailors and naturalists visiting the Torres Strait Islands during the mid-19th century. We’re still not quite sure how many indigenous human remains from Australia are held in British collections. 

As the remains of former Islanders, the significance of these remains had not been lost to present day Islanders who, unsurprisingly, held strong emotions about their repatriation. 

“They are our people and they are coming home – this is a wonderful moment for us”, Ned David, a community leader from the Central islands and member of the Torres Strait Repatriation Group, told The Guardian . 

This repatriation was the result of close collaboration between the Museum and an indigenous community, which took place over two stages in March and November 2011. The original intention was to return all 138 remains. However, the arrangement was amended after the Torres Strait communities agreed the Museum should continue to care for 116 of those remains with a poorer provenance. A decision whether they will always continue to be held in trust by the Museum was left for the future. 

Instead of using the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), an agency that negotiates the return of human remains on behalf of other indigenous communities, the Islanders chose to make their own direct approach to the Museum in 2005. Over the next six years, a convergence of the Museum’s scientific interests with the Islanders requirement to satisfy their spiritual needs began to evolve.

The official Australian government position on the repatriation of indigenous human remains differs from the return of other cultural property. It's based on a mutual respect for the personal feelings and sensitivities of the Islanders, as well as a need by government to meet their cultural needs.

Ultimately, these elements carried greater weight in the final decision by the Museum to repatriate.

Both parties were keen that co-operation should continue into the future, including further research into the bones to better understand the lives of past Islanders. The NHM provided a museum placement to a Torres Strait Islander, Emma Loban, whose work and curating experience at the NHM lays foundations for further scientific study of the bones at their place of origin. With the Islanders taking a lead role, we can expect brand new research into how the islanders once lived, together with the creation of an entirely new museum narrative. 

Since the 1990s thousands of human remains have been repatriated by British museums to indigenous communities. In 1998 a number of Maori tattooed heads ( mokomokai ) were returned to New Zealand by the anthropology museum of Edinburgh University.  Once part of an 18th century collection, they are now preserved in a wahi tapu , a sacred place within the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, which ensures both limited access to these heads and their spiritual well-being.

Other repatriations of human remains by UK museums and institutions include the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, the Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, the British Museum, the Peterborough Museum, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, the University of Bradford, the Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton and the National Museums, Liverpool. 

Photo: The Natural History Museum, London