The Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) recently returned 11 objects to an Aboriginal community in Northern Australia.
A kangaroo tooth headband and 10 glass spearheads, some of which are more than 100 years old, were voluntarily returned by the museum to the Larrakia Community of Australia’s Northern Territory in a handover ceremony on May 20.
The tools and woven fiber artifacts—collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—are ceremonial items of deep spiritual and cultural importance to the Larrakia Community.
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Chief’s Headband from the Larrakia Community made from kangaroo teeth. Courtesy of the Fowler Museum.
Half of the returned objects first arrived at the Fowler Museum in 1965 through a large donation from the Wellcome Trust. Pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome collected medical and archaeological artifacts, estimated at approximately 1 million objects. After Wellcome died in 1936, the Wellcome Trust dispersed his holdings. The British Museum received the largest gift, while the Fowler Museum received 30,000 objects in 1965. The remaining objects the Fowler Museum returned to the Larrakia Community on May 20 were gifts from private collectors.
Since 2021, elders from the Larrakia Community have worked closely with AIATSIS and the Fowler Museum to identify these 11 items and facilitate their return.
The timing for the return of the objects is guided by the community they originate from. Next year, the Larrakia community plans to open a cultural center—“a place for this material to come and be cared for in accordance with Larrakia cultural protocols next year,” as Dylan Daniel-Marsh, A/g Executive Director Partnerships and Engagement Group for AIATSIS, told ARTnews.
AIATSIS is an Indigenous-led national cultural institution solely dedicated to the diverse history, cultures, and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia. In 2018, AIATSIS established a Return of Cultural Heritage program (RoCH) to identify and facilitate the safe return of cultural heritage items from overseas institutions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections.
AIATSIS has facilitated the return of more than 2,300 items back to Australia, including 20 Warumungu objects from the Fowler Museum last July.
“There was a moment in which we briefly talked about doing a joint repatriation of Larrakia and Warumungu, and then decided to keep them separate,” Silvia Forni, the director of the Fowler Museum, told ARTnews.
Glass spearheads. Courtesy of the Fowler Museum.
In addition to the 20 Warumungu objects returned last July, the Fowler Museum also returned seven objects to the Asante Kingdom in the Republic of Ghana last February. Forni said that repatriation was paid for out of the museum’s own operating funds and was “incredibly expensive,” due to the high cost of shipping cultural treasures. This repatriation, by contrast, was less costly.
Larrakia Custodians Tina Baum (Gulumirrgin-Larrakia/Wardaman/Karajarri) and Darryn Wilson (Larrakia / Gulumirrgin Academic) described pride in being the first people from their community to have seen the objects in a long time.
“They have a time capsule feel about them,” Wilson said. “They are items that are created in the past that will allow future generations to appreciate Larrakia craftsmanship.”