20 Items of significant cultural importance were returned to the Warumungu community of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, Australia. The permanent, voluntary, and ethical return of the items by the Fowler Museum at UCLA, a renowned museum dedicated to global arts and cultures with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Indigenous Americas, was initiated by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).
AIATSIS is Australia’s only national cultural institution whose work is solely dedicated to the diverse history, cultures, and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia. The AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage (RoCH) program team have worked closely with Warumungu Elders and the Fowler’s collections team since March 2021 and together identified 20 objects of cultural importance to the Warumungu community.
Ten of the returned Warumungu objects were gifts from private collectors while the other 10 arrived in the Fowler’s collections via the Wellcome Trust. After Sir Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and artifact collector, died in 1936, the trust dispersed his collection, with the Fowler receiving 30,000 items from around the globe in 1965.
The repatriated objects include clubs, Wirli or Ngurrulumuru (fighting picks), Marttan (knives), Murkutu (sheaths), Kupija (adzes), and a Wartilykirri (hooked ‘number seven’ boomerang), all of which are being unconditionally returned to Warumungu's Nyinkka Nyunyu Art & Culture Centre and will be cared for in accordance with the traditions and customs of the Warumungu community.
The Fowler’s approach to exhibitions and programming increasingly relies on co- creation with curators and artists from the communities of origin of the historical works in the Museum’s collections. The foregrounding of Indigenous perspective is a methodology that shapes many of the Fowler’s current and future projects. This ethical return alongside a year of exhibitions and programming demonstrates the Fowler Museum’s commitment to responsible stewardship and the preservation and exploration of global arts and cultures.
The return of cultural heritage material is a key aspiration of Australia’s First Nations people. It supports the maintenance and revitalization of the world’s oldest continuous living cultures. It facilitates the intergenerational transfer of knowledge, supports reconciliation, truth-telling, and healing. The Australian Government’s, AIATSIS led, RoCH program works to identify and facilitate the return of cultural heritage material held in overseas collections. The program emphasizes the power of collaboration and the significance of ensuring that First Nations peoples are centered in conversations about where their cultural material is best placed and best cared for.
Main Image: Artefacts from left to right – Ngurrulumuru (fighting pick), Wartilykirri (hooked ‘number seven’ boomerang), Marttan (knife) and Murkutu (sheath), Kupija (adze). Photo: © Don Cole, Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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