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Bitterness laid to rest with traditional burial
Tuesday, 8 March 2005
9:52:48 AM
SYDNEY, NSW, March 3, 2005: Past bitterness and misunderstandings were laid to rest today when two national museums gave up collections of Aboriginal remains for a traditional burial in Sydney.
The remains of 14 Aborigines native to Sydney's northern beaches were buried at North Head, near Manly's historic Quarantine Station.
"The 14 people whose spirits we lay to rest here today were all from the Karingal mob," Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council chairman Rob Welsh said.
"This is their land. Their people lived here for tens of thousands of years."
Mr Welsh said the remains belonged to people stolen by European scientists more than 200 years ago for research.
"When the Europeans invaded they didn't just take our land, they also stole the bodies of our people," he told a commemoration service today.
"They thought we were dying out so they wanted to measure and study us in the name of science and progress."
Mr Welsh said the work of government bodies, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Museum together with Aboriginal groups had "buried some of the bitterness and misunderstandings of the past".
"Although stealing bodies would sound gruesome to anyone, it's even more frightening to Aboriginal people," he said.
"We believe that after we die we should be returned to the country where we were born.
"To a blackfella, not being buried in your own country means your spirit can't be at rest."
Wrapped in paperbark, the remains were carried by the elders and young people up a grey sandy path, through the scrub of North Head to 14 empty graves, surrounded by burnt banksia trees.
To the beat of boomerangs struck together and didgeridoos, and surrounded by the traditional cleansing smoke of burning eucalypt, about 100 people watched the remains reach their final resting place.
Beryl Timbery Beller, a Dharawal elder, carried the remains of a baby who never saw Australia, having been born on a ship, sailing to Britain.
The baby was buried with its mother.
"I can't imagine what it was like for mother and baby to be buried together and that baby not to know what this land was like when it was just virgin bush," she said.
"It grieves me because there are thousands of these skeletal remains still out there, scattered throughout the world."
The director of the repatriation unit at the National Museum of Australia, Mike Pickering, said there were 2,000 documented sets of Aboriginal remains but many more undocumented.
"Some remains were returned by Edinburgh University in 1991 and 2000 - and that was largely through the work of ATSIC and other Aboriginal organisations," he said.
"There are increasing efforts overseas and increasing recognition overseas that remains should be returned."
The British Museum of Natural History holds one of the biggest collections of Aboriginal remains at 450 individuals, some even with names.
Mr Pickering said changes to British law could make the repatriation of those remains possible. - AAP
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