On a remote stretch of private beach on the far north-west coast of lutruwita (Tasmania), a sacred object is about to finally come home.
For decades the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has been requesting the return of luwamakuna, or petroglyphs – mostly circular markings their ancestors carved into stone 14,000 years ago – that were taken by anthropologists in 1962.
On Wednesday, after years of political negotiations and logistical complications, the rocks left the museums in which they were displayed and stored, and will travel across much of the state to be reattached to bare rock face at preminghana, near the north-west tip of the island, this weekend.
Aaron Everett is a pakana man and former heritage officer who has been visiting preminghana since he was a child. He said it’s a special place.
“If you’re looking at preminghana it’s – people are mesmerised by it,” he said. “We would’ve had such abundance and resources there when you look at the midden sites all through that place, it had everything … Having these things returned, that enables us to regain something that’s not been fully lost.”
The return brings up conflicting emotions for him.
“My feeling is probably sadness, but excitement – and a bit of a mix. It’s like a missing piece – I mean it is, really – but it’s also a missing piece of us. When something is taken away and interfered with, that affects our community and our people in a different kind of way, so when it gets returned there’s that feeling of fulfilment but also regret.”
In 1962 it was legal for the anthropologists to saw off the immense slab of the sacred carved sandstone. Part of a series of carved rock art made along kilometres of the wild west coast, the enormous piece – weighing 1.5 tonnes and standing taller than 1.8 metres – crossed the state to end up at Hobart’s Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG).
It had been crudely cut in two, then put back together with nearly 50 metal pins, and was displayed inside the museum until 2005. Along with smaller pieces, it has since been in storage at TMAG and at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG). The pieces left both storage facilities on Wednesday morning, as community gathered to celebrate the repatriation.
In early 2021, TMAG publicly apologised for taking the petroglyphs (along with many other examples of Aboriginal cultural heritage, including ancestral remains). Since then the museum has facilitated the temporary return of other items of cultural significance from across the world.
At the same time as the apology, after years of negotiations, TMAG officially announced the transferral of ownership of the petroglyphs back to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Roger Jaensch, the state minister for Aboriginal affairs, signed Aboriginal heritage permits for the return two years ago – but the actual transfer has been repeatedly delayed.
As the manager of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania – the title holder of the preminghana site on behalf of all Aboriginal people in Tasmania – pakana woman Rebecca Digney has overseen the planning of the petroglyphs’ return.
“It’s been a long journey,” she said, when Guardian Australia spoke to her in February. “I just can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like on the day they go back, I’m getting quite emotional. I’m very, very happy that these sacred items are going back to where they belong in the landscape.
“They’re incredibly important. They’re part of a whole network of petroglyphs across the north-west of the state. It’s all part of a cultural landscape. They are incredibly sacred sites for our people.”
‘There are always going to be fears’
The stones’ return is not without concern. The Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation is promoting a protest at preminghana on Wednesday, claiming a lack of consultation and citing concerns that the petroglyphs will be buried by natural sand movements over time.
On top of added fear of the effects that climate change will have on the exposed heritage, there’s the risk of human interference.
Earlier this year, evidence of damage was found at two other petroglyph sites on Tasmania’s west coast.
In late January it was reported that a slab of carved rock at laraturunawn (Sundown Point), about 35km south of preminghana, had disappeared. A Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania investigation found that natural causes were to blame, but with the large missing piece nowhere to be found, many in the Aboriginal community feared it might have been taken.
Within a fortnight came news of damage to petroglyphs at maynpatat (Trial Harbour), farther south on the west coast. This spot has been hit before: in 1998 a large piece was taken, sparking an Australian federal police investigation that traced the theft to the US and involved Interpol. But the trail went cold. Then in 1999 the site was vandalised with spray paint.
Digney says these cases strengthen the argument that Aboriginal cultural heritage belongs in Aboriginal hands.
“There are always going to be fears of people doing the wrong thing, that there will be desecration, vandalism and threat,” she said. “It’s an ongoing battle for the Aboriginal community to protect our heritage and keep it safe in perpetuity. And not just for the Aboriginal community – these sites are of world significance.
“When we hear of petroglyphs being stolen or any Aboriginal heritage being destroyed it’s always a shock to the system but it never comes as a great surprise. Our community is used to it, which I guess is quite telling.”
Remote preminghana does have a major advantage over the tourist destinations of Sundown Point and Trial Harbour: an Indigenous protected area, it was handed back to the Aboriginal community in 1995 and is now maintained by Aboriginal rangers. Digney said it was a relief that these petroglyphs’ specific location is not widely known outside the Aboriginal community.
“The Aboriginal community takes great pride in being able to share their culture and their knowledge and showcase these sacred sites to people that have a genuine interest, but we cannot run the risk of doing that here, because of what we’ve seen happen in the past,” she said.
“They [the rangers] have the power to say ‘there are certain areas that are publicly accessible but where the petroglyphs are, it’s not’. Since that land has been returned to the Aboriginal community, the rest of the petroglyphs at preminghana have been very well protected.”
