Five sets of ancestral remains from Australia that had been in German museum collections since the 19th century were handed back at a ceremony Thursday that a community representative described as a sad but \u201cvery joyful\u201d moment. <\/p>\n
The restitution is part of ongoing efforts by German museums and authorities to return human remains and cultural artifacts that were taken during colonial times. <\/p>\n
In this case, three sets of remains that had been in Berlin since 1880 were handed over along with two other sets of remains held in the northwestern German city of Oldenburg. Four representatives of the Ugar Island community, part of the Torres Strait Islands off the northeastern tip of Australia, traveled to Berlin to honor their ancestors and accompany their remains on their journey home. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese ancestral remains were never meant to be here,\u201d said Hermann Parzinger, the head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin\u2019s state museums. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re here because, during the colonial era and beyond, Europeans presumed to make other peoples and cultures the subject, or more often object, of their research \u2014 appropriating artifacts from cultures outside Europe on a scale that is almost unimaginable today and even desecrating the burial places of those communities in the process,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Around the turn of the 20th century, he added, Berlin museums set up a network of scientists, travelers, traders and others who sent back cultural items from around the world, and \u201cin racing to compete with the other major European museums, they all too often disregarded the humanity and dignity of the peoples they encountered.\u201d <\/p>\n
The restitution of the remains from Berlin\u2019s Ethnological Museum and the State Museum for Nature and Man in Oldenburg means that 162 sets of ancestral remains have now been returned to Australia from Germany, and about 1,700 from around the world, said Natasha Smith, Australia\u2019s ambassador to Germany. She said the returns are \u201can extremely high priority\u201d for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the government. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad, but it\u2019s a very joyful moment,\u201d Ugar Island representative Rocky Stephen said at the ceremony honoring the ancestors. \u201cThis is a process of healing that\u2019s going to happen when they return back to us.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter (if) it was nearly a 40-hour journey to travel here, because it\u2019s been 144 years they have been missed back at their home,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Berlin\u2019s museums now aim to do \u201ceverything we can to make the repatriation possible\u201d of remains whose countries and communities of origin can be identified and want to bring them home, Parzinger said. <\/p>\n
More broadly, governments and museums in Europe and North America have increasingly sought to resolve ownership disputes over objects looted during colonial times. <\/p>\n
In 2022, for example, Germany and Nigeria signed an agreement paving the way for the return of hundreds of artifacts known as the Benin Bronzes taken from Africa by a British colonial expedition more than 120 years ago. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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