ngurrulumuruWalter Baldwin SpencerJames Field The Guardianagreed to return the artefacts in June this year
The news comes after the AIATSIS announced last week that six sacred artefacts being held at another New Zealand museum, Tūhura Otago Museum in Dunedin, would also be returning to the Warumungu community.
The artefacts include a boomerang (kalpunta), adze (palya/kupija) and a selection of stone knives (marttan).
Senior Warumungu man Michael Jones said he was glad the artefacts would be returning to his community.
“Them old things they were carved by the old people who had the songs for it, too. I’m glad these things are returning back,” he said, per an AIATSIS statement.
“The museums are respecting us, and they’ve been thinking about us. They weren’t the ones who took them, they just ended up there.
“We can still teach the young people now about these old things and our culture.”
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said returning the artefacts was a “significant moment for the Warumungu people and fundamental to the processes of truth-telling and reconciliation”.
A delegation of Warumungu representatives will travel to New Zealand later this year, alongside members of the AIATSIS, to collect the artefacts in handover ceremonies with local Māori communities.
The post New Zealand Museum Agrees To Return Sacred Artefacts To Northern Territory’s Warumungu Community appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
