Repatriation and Representation: National Museum of Australia

By Melaina Leung

 

This last section focuses on repatriation and collections management efforts at the National Museum of Australia, in collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. These communities make up the continent’s 350+ language groups that each have their own cultures, beliefs, and histories.

 

The National Museum of Australia’s History

Located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, the National Museum of Australia opened in 2001 after nearly a century of efforts culminating in the passing of the National Museum of Australia Act in 1980.¹ According to this piece of legislation, the National Historical Collection maintained by the museum is focused on three themes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, Australian history and society since 1788, and the interaction of people with the Australian environment.²

The museum aims to present Australia’s cultures and history to the world while simultaneously bringing the world’s cultures to Australia.³ To further achieve this end, NMA recently developed a “Master Plan to 2030” that envisions a museum that is twice its current size with both real and virtual interactive galleries.⁴ Access additionally would be increased so that the Australian public would be able to visit travelling exhibits, participate in Defining Moments school programs, and view the museum’s content online. There would also be public access to the museum’s storage and conservation facilities, along with working relationships with Tourism Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other national institutions.

Anthropology at the National Museum of Australia

In total, the National Museum of Australia contains more than 210,000 objects in its collections, which were acquired from other government agencies, purchase, donation, and on commission.⁵ Items in the National Historical Collection are sorted into the following categories on the museum’s website: Agriculture, Arts, Colonial, Environment, Exploration, Gold, Household and Domestic, Indigenous, Industry and Work, Migration, Science and Technology, Sport, Transport, and Women. Some highlights within the Indigenous category include: personal items from famous Aboriginal rights activist Joe McGinness, Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklaces, art pieces from the design company Balarinji, Mornington Island headdresses, and Sugu Mawa (Octopus Mask) artwork by Alick Tipoti.⁶

Significantly, the National Museum of Australia’s relatively recent founding means that it was not explicitly founded as a “colonial” museum. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that the museum still comes from a legacy of colonization and colonial practices at previous museums. Moreover, continuing policy and action should be cognizant of Indigenous values. How the National Museum of Australia continues to grapple with this legacy can be observed in its current approaches to repatriation and collections management.

Repatriation Efforts at the National Museum of Australia⁷

Since its founding in 1980, the National Museum of Australia has been dedicated to returning Indigenous remains and has returned the remains of over 1,000 individuals. However, this responsibility was formalized in 2001 with the creation of a repatriation unit at the museum, which actually resulted from a misreading of official legislation. According to the Australian Government, NMA is to act as a repository for remains only if the affiliated community cannot be identified. This confusion, combined with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission contracting the museum for help with the overseas repatriation of remains, led to the practice that the National Museum of Australia would be a repository for all remains. Unfortunately, when the commission was later disassembled, many of its functions were incorporated into other government units where Indigenous peoples had less independent control.

However, Indigenous advocacy has still played a large role in revolutionizing the attitudes of Australian museums towards repatriation and representation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have long fought to be regarded as equals who are experts in their own culture and partners in museum research, and this work still continues today. Under the Australian Government’s Policy on Indigenous Repatriation, repatriation is seen as a practice that addresses past injustices and empowers Indigenous communities so that they can continue their cultural customs and share the world views of contemporary community members.

Three major organizational groups that the museum have extensively worked with are as follows. Importantly, all relationships required face-to-face consultation and discussion on the homelands of the groups involved. First, NMA collaborated with the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority in South Australia to repatriate overseas remains from the University of Edinburgh’s anatomy department. The Ngarrindjeri were the victims of grave robbing and body shopping, but more than 300 individuals were returned in 2003 after reunification and provenancing at the National Museum of Australia. The second organization is the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre in Fitzroy Crossing of Western Australia. The museum has returned a number of remains and secret sacred objects to the 30 Aboriginal Cultural groups represented by KALACC. NMA has also consulted extensively with the centre. Lastly, with the Gur a Baraharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, the museum initially offered its previous experience as a resource, rather than repatriate Torres Islander collections due to the National Museum of Australia having very few collections. Instead, the museum has assisted in temporarily housing repatriated remains from overseas.

Ultimately, for the National Museum of Australia, in comparison to representation via museum exhibits, repatriation is perceived as harder yet perhaps also more fulfilling: it requires intensive self-reflection and the assessment of one’s own values and beliefs. It further questions the values long held by institutions and their staff, and it evokes deep emotions and responsibilities in Indigenous Peoples. Finally, the museum recognizes that it must continually be proactive in its own efforts and open to thoughtfully critiquing the approaches and practices of other institutions.

Collections Management at the National Museum of Australia⁸

Another major effort at the National Museum of Australia is the museum’s collections management of Indigenous objects. Similar to repatriation, collections management requires close, mutually beneficial relationships with the communities involved. Because of the need to consult widely on best practices, the institutional representation of Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples also improves as a result.

For NMA, the legislation behind its founding dictated that the museum has a responsibility to maintain a “Gallery of Aboriginal Australia” (formally the “Gallery of First Australians”). There are several factors that determine what goes into this gallery and is kept in the museum’s Indigenous collections. First, the National Museum of Australia unconditionally repatriates ancestral remains and secret/sacred objects. Secular objects are returned on a case-by-case basis and thus can be put on display. The museum additionally does not buy secret/sacred items or objects of sensitive significance and even at times discourages their purchase or display at other institutions.

Another factor is an object’s significance or sensitivity, which is ranked along a spectrum: secular, sacred - public, sacred - ceremonial (public), sacred - sorcery objects, and secret/sacred (restricted). Secular objects are objects of everyday use, typically of economic or technological use. Sacred - public objects are items that are thought of some sort of sacred aspect but are allowed to be viewed publicly. Sacred - ceremonial are objects that tend to have exquisite designs and are limited to being used in ceremonies. However, they can be viewed by the public. Sacred - sorcery objects are items that are considered sensitive due to their use in sorcery. They thus can be considered dangerous to the holder and individuals around the holder due to their powers and potential use. Nevertheless, this also does not necessarily restrict them from public viewing. Finally, secret/sacred (restricted) objects are restricted from view, or even kept from other individuals’ knowledge, due to their use in restricted ceremonies. This could mean that they must not be viewed (or known) by the uninitiated or anyone from the opposite sex. These are no longer put on display by the National Museum of Australia or other federal or state institutions.

Although the museum uses these five levels of sensitivity to categorize the objects in its collections, according to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander beliefs, all objects tend to be considered sacred because they are created by the activities of sacred ancestral beings. They accordingly contain some spiritual energies of their creators.

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Footnotes

1. National Museum of Australia Website: About - History of our Museum
2. National Museum of Australia Website: About - Our collection
3. National Museum of Australia Website: About - Vision, mission and values
4. National Museum of Australia Website: Master Plan
5. National Museum of Australia Website: Explore - Collection
6. National Museum of Australia Website: Explore - Collection - Indigenous
7. “And The Walls Came Tumbling Down” by Michael Pickering, pgs 918-926 of The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation: Return, Reconcile, Renew, edited by Cressida Fforde, C. Timothy McKeown, and Honor Keeler. Routledge, 2020.
8. “Up close and personal. The management of sensitive Indigenous objects at the National Museum of Australia” by Michael Pickering, pgs 273-290 of Nicht nur Raubkunst! Sensible Dinge in Museen und universitären Sammlungen, edited by Anna-Maria Brandstetter and Vera Hierholzer. V&R Unipress Mainz University Press, 2018.