Dutch hand over Aboriginal remains
VALKERIE BAYNES
September 29, 2009
Elders from the Bundjalung Aboriginal community will return to Australia next month with the remains of their ancestors handed over by Dutch institutions.
Bundjalung elders John Morrissey and Gwen Hickling were in the Netherlands to collect the remains, held by the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), during a ceremony at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden on Tuesday.
Speaking shortly before the ceremony, Morrissey said the move would make history.
"This is the first time it's ever happened to the Bundjalung people," Morrissey told AAP.
"This is a really, really important thing for us to be over here to go and collect our ancestors and take them back home again to their resting place.
"I'm very excited about it and so are the people waiting at home for us to return with them."
Morrissey and Hickling will repatriate the remains of two Bunjdalung ancestors to their community in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.
They will call a meeting of community elders in Lismore to organise a ceremony to deliver the remains to their final resting place.
The bones were acquired by the Dutch Museum of Ethnology in 1882.
The remains of three other Aboriginal Australians held by LUMC will be returned to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, where further research will be carried out into their origins.
British scientist Sir Joseph Banks gave one of those remains to Leiden University professor Sebald Brugmans.
It was acquired by the university following Brugmans' death in 1819.
Morrissey and Hickling will also travel to the UK to meet with representatives of Oxford University and the Natural History Museum to discuss the return of the remains of four Bundjalung ancestors.
"We're going to go an negotiate with them too," Morrissey said.
"We want to take them all home together."
The elders are expected back in Australia on October 8.
Since 1990, the remains of more than 1,150 indigenous people have been repatriated to Australia.
There are still more than 900 indigenous Australian remains in museums around the world, mostly in the UK, Germany, France, Poland and the US.
news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/dutch-hand-over-aboriginal-remains-20090929-gb2q.html
30/09/2009
Dutch hand over remains of Australian aborigines
Remains of five aboriginal Australians were returned to their descendants in a special spiritual cleansing ceremony in Leiden on Tuesday.
Leiden – Dutch authorities on Tuesday presented the skeletal remains of five 18th and 19th century aboriginal Australians to their descendants in a special ceremony in Leiden.
"The spirits can stop wandering now, they are returning home with us," Gwen Hickling, an elder of the aboriginal Bundjalung community, said after a spiritual cleansing ceremony involving the burning of eucalyptus leaves.
"The spirits were wandering in No Man's land, but now we can take them to their resting place."
Wonu Veys, curator at the Nation Museum of Ethnology that owned the remains from 1882 until their transfer to the Leiden University Medical Centre in 1935, said the skeletons of two of the individuals dated from the 19th century.
"We don't know exactly who they were or how they died," she told AFP at the event.
The remains of the two were bought for the museum on the Australian east coast for anthropological research.
Veys said the remains of the other three "are probably a lot older, we think from the 18th century," but further research would be done by Australian scientists to trace their exact age and origin.
The remains of the three are believed to have come to the museum from the collection of 18th century British naturalist Joseph Banks.
The bones were presented in two wooden boxes, draped in the black, red and yellow aboriginal flag, by Dutch culture and science minister Ronald Plasterk to Hickling and fellow Bundjalung elder Desmond Morrissey.
Australian ambassador Lydia Morton told the gathering that many aboriginal people had a strong spiritual connection to their country.
"It is their mother. They believe that the human spirit is born from their land and returns to it upon death," she said.
"When their people's remains are not in their country and with their people, then their spirits are wandering. These wandering spirits are restless and their negative energy can cause troubles in their home community."
She thanked Dutch authorities for aiding in the Australian government's quest to repatriate indigenous remains held in overseas collections.
"It is important in healing the pain of past injustices."
Plasterk said remains like these had contributed to modern-day scientific knowledge.
"Of course nowadays we think differently about the way to treat those human remains. There are many examples of exhibitions and displays at that time that would never be allowed today."
Morrissey said the treatment meted out to aboriginal remains in the past made him "very sad".
"They were taken away without any permission. The aboriginal peoples had no say at all," he told AFP.
"It was cruel, but we are closing the gap now."
AFP / Expatica
<http://www.medicalfacts.nl/2009/09/29/geven-we-eindelijk-aborigines-hun-voorouders-terug/>
Geven we eindelijk Aborigines hun voorouders terug?
Submitted by A. Borsboom on September 29, 2009 – 22:44
Vandaag heeft het Leids Medisch Universitair Centrum (LUMC) de resten van voorouders van de Australische Aborigines teruggeven aan twee Aboriginal vertegenwoordigers uit het noorden van de staat Nieuw Zuid Wales – waar een deel van de menselijke resten oorspronkelijk vandaan komen. De beenderen zullen in Australië op traditionele wijze herbegraven worden zodat de zielen van de overleden in de geloofsopvatting van de Aborigines dan pas rust zullen vinden.
Het LUMC heeft daarmee gehoor gegeven aan het formele verzoek van Aboriginal gemeenschappen en de Australische overheid om de vijf sets Aboriginal stoffelijke resten af te staan. De Australische overheid kent sinds 2006 een officiële Aboriginal Heritage Act om Aboriginal claims te steunen en westerse overheden te overtuigen van de noodzaak de menselijke resten te repatriëren. Precieze aantal zijn niet bekend maar het moet om duizenden skeletten of delen daarvan gaan.
In de 19e en eerste helft van de 20ste eeuw werden namelijk met grote regelmaat Aboriginal skeletten opgegraven voor zgn. wetenschappelijk onderzoek – met name om aan de hand van beenderen en schedels evolutionaire processen vast te stellen. Het feit dat Aborigines helemaal onderaan de menselijke ladder waren geplaatst maakte hen bijzonder interessant als onderzoeksobject. Sommige onderzoekers hoopten zo de ‘missing link’ te vinden, anderen trokken uit schedelmetingen vergaande conclusies over het vermeende lage intellectuele en morele besef van Aborigines.
Hoe de beenderen in de diverse Europese musea en medische centra zijn terechtgekomen is nu meestal niet meer te achterhalen. Maar dat Aboriginal lichamen in naam van de wetenschap werden opgegraven en verhandeld tegen de uitdrukkelijke wens van de toen monddode Aborigines staat buiten kijf. Ook zijn Aboriginal stoffelijke resten, soms zelf nog tot medio 20ste eeuw, weggehaald uit ziekenhuizen, gestichten en gevangenissen. Om de illegale handel te verdoezelen werden soms de beenderen omschreven als ‘kangaroo bones’ om ze onder die valse noemer te kunnen exporteren naar vooral Groot Brittannië, maar ook naar Frankrijk, Duitsland en – zij het minder massaal- naar Nederland.
Het meest schrijnende voorbeeld van die jacht op beenderen is nog terug te vinden in een bericht in de Sydney Morning Herald van 31 januari, 1955:
It is actually on record in the history of Mackay, Queensland, that one overseas collector made a request to the trooper that he shoot a native boy to furnish a complete exhibit of an Australian aboriginal skeleton, skin and skul.
Aborigines struinen nu westerse instellingen af om na te gaan waar stoffelijke resten bewaard worden om ze vervolgens terug te eisen en in Australië eervol te her-begraven. Deze acties gebeuren vanuit hun religieus besef (de ziel vindt pas rust wanneer de beenderen terug zijn in de sacrale aarde van de clan), maar hebben ze ook een duidelijk politiek/strategisch motief: rechtzetten wat in naam van onze evolutionistische en racistische opvattingen geschonden is en duidelijk maken dat dit onacceptabele praktijken waren. Een Aboriginal advocaat verwoordt de gevoelens als volgt:
The damage to the Aboriginal community of having remains [overseas] is astronomical. The spirits of our dead are disturbed by being separated from their bodies. The remains are as important to us as land rights. It’s a much more volatile issue, closer to the heart than even getting our land back.
Het Leids Medisch centrum heeft gelukkig adequaat gereageerd, maar het steekt Aborigines dat ze nu al meer dan dertig jaar bezig zijn de stoffelijke resten van hun zeer recente voorouders overal uit Europa terug te krijgen. Verbitterd vragen ze zich af of het ook zo moeizaam zou gaan als het ging om stoffelijke resten van westerlingen. Een bewust gekozen retorische vraag die als een boemerang dreigend op onze hoofden terug keert.
<http://www.medicalfacts.nl/2009/09/29/geven-we-eindelijk-aborigines-hun-voorouders-terug/>
