Human remains and necklace returned to Aboriginal group

A delegation from the group will travel to the University of Aberdeen to receive the remains of a young man who was decapitated near the Shannon River on the island in the 1820s or 1830s.

During this period British colonisers would pay bounties to obtain the body parts of tribespeople, and it's believed that the young man was killed for this reason.

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Bounties were introduced at £5 for an adult Aboriginal person and £2 per child to encourage colonists to bring in live captives, with the payments later extended to the dead, thus a person bringing in the head of a native person could expect to receive financial reward.

The man's remains have been at the University of Aberdeen since 1852, when it purchased the collection of natural history professor William MacGillivray.

After acquisition by the University, the skull was kept as part of the Comparative Anatomy collection, before being transferred to the Human Culture collection in the early 2000s. It was used in medical education in the 19th and early 20th centuries but the collection is no longer used for teaching and there is no current or intended research associated with it.

The TAC will receive the remains on Friday, March 21, before returning them to Tasmania "to return him to his country, his people and his spirit laid to rest at last".

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre said: "It is heartening to see that The Aberdeen University has acted with integrity and good faith in their proactive dealings directly with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre to ensure the repatriation of this man is undertaken unconditionally and directly to the community of origin.

"This ensures that Aboriginal peoples right to self determination and ownership of our ancestors remains is respected in line with our expectations and article 12 of the International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People."

On Tuesday the delegation received a shell necklace made by an Aboriginal woman in the 1800s from the University of Glasgow.

A Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklace (Image: Hunterian Museum) The shell necklace is believed to originate from the Bass Strait islands, located between Tasmania and mainland Australia. It is recorded as being donated to The Hunterian by Mrs Margaret Miller of Launceston on a visit to Scotland in 1877.

A first request for its return was made in 1994, but was rejected by the University.

A second request was turned down in 2002 following a visit from Tasmanian Aboriginal delegates on the grounds that “there was no evidence that the acquisition of the Bass Straits necklace was unethical in any way".

An agreement was found last year for the return of the necklace.

Necklace making is the oldest continual cultural practice in Tasmania which has continued uninterrupted for thousands of years. Early shell necklaces are rare and considered a learning resource for present-day makers and significant heritage belongings with links to the past.

The sourcing, collecting and stringing of shells is a closely guarded tradition, passed down through generations of women makers associated with the Bass Strait islands.

The intricate and painstaking practice is now acknowledged as a highly skilled and unique Aboriginal art form. Today there are concerns that the practice may die out due to a decline in the number of shells, attributed to climate change.

Andry Sculthorpe delegate and project manager at the TAC said: “The Hunterian has graciously and with goodwill accepted our claim to our important cultural items, the situation for Tasmanian Aboriginal people since invasion has meant that every cultural piece made by our ancestors is precious and rare and maintains our connection with our culture and identity."

Professor Steph Scholten, director of The Hunterian said: “I am glad that we can set a new precedent today: that the University of Glasgow and The Hunterian, amongst a growing number of museums, are open to discussing and acting on repatriation claims.

"We have come to understand the urgent need for museums in Europe and beyond to address their pasts in equitable ways with originating and diasporic communities.”

At the time of the British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, there were thought to be 3-15,000 indigenous Tasmanians.

By 1835 there were only around 400 Aboriginal Tasmanians, most of them incarcerated in camps.

The native people were forced off Tasmania by the settlers and moved to nearby islands, with a woman named Truganini believed to have been the last 'full-blooded' Aboriginal Tasmanian.

Many scholars view the decimation of the native population as a genocide, though this is disputed by others who attest that the decline in population could largely be put down to the impact of introduced diseases.

The definition of genocide adopted by the United Nations was put forward by Raphael Lemkin, who used Tasmania as a case study in his history of the concept.