Cultural Restitution
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Netherlands sends more than 300 artefacts to Panama in “largest return” in Central American history
06 September 2022
A collection of 343 pre-Hispanic ceramics, originating from the Gran Coclé region and dating to the first millennium AD, has been returned by Leiden University to Panama City. The collection will be displayed at the Museo Antrpológico Reina Torres de Araúz. Panamanian Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes has described the collection as “the largest return of archaeological pieces in the history of Central America.” The objects, including grave goods and utilitarian items, are understood to have been excavated in the early 1900s, at the time when Panama declared independence from Colombia. A Dutch businessman acquired the objects quite legally at local markets in Panama while working there in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, Panama’s tourist industry was growing and there was a plentiful supply of archaeological items on sale in the markets. After retiring, he donated them to the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, where they have since been held in storage. The Reina Torres museum in Panama City holds more than 16,000 objects but is closed to the public, awaiting an opening in 2023 following renovations.
Five Swiss museums receive funding to help identify the rightful owners of cultural assets
15 September 2022
Starting next year, the Basel City cantonal government is setting aside CHF250,000 for provenance research into art and other cultural objects held in cantonal museums. According to cantonal president Beat Jans, the aim is “to gain clarity about the origin of our collections step by step and to communicate the research results transparently.” Their focus will be on a dialogue in search of fair solutions, while also taking into account the canton’s interests. The Museum of Antiquities has set up a partnership project with other Swiss institutions and museums in Nigeria and Benin to determine the provenance of objects in their collections. The Basel government has also agreed the Natural History Museum should return twelve skulls and a hair sample that belong to Aboriginal communities in Australia.
New Zealand museum returns six cultural objects of Warumungu origin to Australia
18 September 2022
Six cultural objects of Warumungu origin, originally collected by James Field and the British-born anthropologist Baldwin Spencer around the late 19th or early 20th century, have been returned by the Tūhura Otago Museum in Dunedin to Australia. Since 1868 the museum has accumulated one of the finest and most diverse collections of taoka (treasures) in Aotearoa New Zealand. This collection, acquired by the Museum through various exchanges between 1910 and 1937, includes a kalpunta (boomerang), palya/kupija (adze) and a selection of marttan (stone knives). Warumungu people are the traditional custodians of land in and around the township of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory. “The return of cultural heritage material after more than a century is a significant moment for the Warumungu people and fundamental to the processes of truth-telling and reconciliation,” said the Hon Linda Burney MP, the Minister for Indigenous Australians. “Repatriations like these are critical for the transfer of knowledge and cultural maintenance and revitalisation for future generations.” The repatriation follows two years of consultation and research by the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage team (RoCH), along with discussions between the Warumungu community of the Tennant Creek region and the Tūhura Otago Museum. In June 2022 the Museum’s Trust Board endorsed the repatriation request and the research report submitted by AIATSIS and the Warumungu men. The RoCH team will travel to New Zealand later this year with a delegation of Warumungu representatives to collect the six objects. A selection of them will later be displayed at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in Tennant Creek.
Will the establishment of a restitution committee lead to the return of Ugandan artefacts?
23 September 2022
The Ugandan Tourism Association has asked its government to establish a committee to lead the return of Ugandan artefacts from foreign museums. Inspired by the attempts of other African countries to recover their cultural heritage, the Ugandans have set their sights on recovering objects seized during the British invasion of the Bunyoro Kingdom in 1894. But while Uganda can certainly increase the pressure on foreign governments, it needs to confront the same long-standing obstacles that other claimants face, namely, the lack of appropriate facilities and standards in their national museums. In an uncompromising assessment, Uganda’s Independent reports, “In Uganda, there is no museum of art worth mentioning, save the Uganda Museum which again doesn’t have a reputable Museum director and curator.” The paper goes on to describe Uganda’s challenges as the same “tight rope” that many other African countries must walk. Firstly, there are no proper or adequate infrastructures to accommodate the return of their stolen artefacts. Secondly, lengthy provenance research is still required to prove the objects were in fact stolen. The article concludes: “the absence of a unified voice to negotiate the unconditional terms of the return of the artworks highlights the little preparedness African governments have undertaken to house their art permanently”.
Further Warumungu cultural objects set to return from Auckland museum
26 September 2022
AIATSIS has announced that four more cultural objects originating from the Warumungu community of the Northern Territory are to be returned by the Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. These objects were also collected by the British-born anthropologist Baldwin Spencer, who worked with Warumungu people alongside Francis Gillen in the early 1900s, and James Field, the telegraph operator at Tennant Creek. Together Spencer and Gillen amassed a significant collection of over 6000 ethnographic items from Central Australia, now dispersed around numerous institutions across the globe. The four objects are a palya/kupija (adze), a ngurrulumuru (axe/pick) and two wartilykirri (hooked boomerangs). The repatriation follows two years of research by the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage team. In June 2022 the Museum’s Trust Board endorsed a repatriation request and research report submitted by AIATSIS and the Warumungu men. “Auckland Museum seeks to reconnect descendants with their taonga,” said CEO Dr David Gaimster. “Repatriation is key to ensuring these taonga can be reunited with the Warumungu community.”
A ceremony formally returning the four artefacts to the Warumungu community was held in Auckland on Monday 14 November 2022.
Austria to return stolen Māori and Moriori ancestral remains
27 September 2022
The ancestral remains of about 64 Māori and Moriori are returning to Aotearoa, New Zealand 77 years after the first request to repatriate them was made in 1945. Forty-nine sets of the remains were collected by the notorious Austrian grave-robber and taxidermist Andreas Reischek. Reischek spent 12 years in New Zealand between 1877 and 1889 looting tapu (sacred) places and exhuming and stealing human remains. The identity and home of many of these remains may never be known. “There is a lot of pressure internally as well as externally [on museums] to decolonise their practices and take a more considered approach to their collections,” said Te Papa’s acting head of repatriation Te Arikirangi Mamaku-Ironside. Dr Sabine Eggers, head of international collections at Vienna’s Natural History Museum, will accompany the remains on their transportation back to Aotearoa, using indigenous cultural customs and protocol. Mamaku-Ironside said it was important for descendants and communities to be able to speak to Dr Eggers about what happened to these remains as an expression of humility from Austria. Dr Eggers had personally written a report to Austrian authorities previously explaining how the value of the remains was significantly higher for Māori and Moriori than could ever be for reasons related to science. It was an honour to help heal an “open wound” she added. New Zealand’s repatriation programme is tasked with locating, identifying, negotiating and physically returning kōiwi tangata (Māori skeletal remains) and kōimi tangata (Moriori skeletal remains) to New Zealand. Since its launch in 2003, the programme has repatriated almost 800 ancestral remains.
Canadian Museums Association calls for more repatriation of Indigenous objects
02 October 2022
The Canadian Museums Association (CMA) has published a major new report, Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums, calling for greater support and funding for Indigenous organisations and museums as they pursue Indigenous “self-determination” at all levels of governance. The report finds that few Canadian museums have formal repatriation policies and even fewer of them are publicly accessible. Currently only one province, Alberta, has repatriation legislation. The report, which has taken over three years to prepare, was commissioned as part of Canada’s response to Call to Action 67, one of 95 calls to action issued in 2015 by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The CMA estimates that 6.7 million Indigenous objects and human remains are held in Canadian museums, with approximately 94% of them held in eight institutions. Unlike the United States, Canada does not have legislation in place to return Native cultural items to Indigenous tribes and organisations. However, passing new legislation mandating and funding repatriation efforts is one of the report’s 10 recommendations. The report also recommends hiring more Indigenous professionals into permanent roles and consulting Indigenous rights holders for the care of repatriated objects.
Three US museums return 31 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
11 October 2022
Following the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents decision to deaccession its collection of Benin Bronzes last June, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art transferred ownership of 29 looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria during a ceremony today at the National Museum of African Art. Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum also each returned a looted Benin Bronze. The ceremony was witnessed by Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and Prof. Abba Tijjani, Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The Oba of Benin was represented by his brother, Aghatise Erediauwa. The Minister made it clear that Nigerian museums will sustain the tradition of exchanges and collaborations with museums in the United States and other parts of the world. “Nigeria looks forward to working with these institutions on joint exhibitions and other educational exchanges.” This is the first return made under the Smithsonian’s new ethical returns policy. Another 20 Benin Bronzes are currently held in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Provenance research on these works has been undertaken and is expected to lead to their return.
UK museums willing to return human remains to Zimbabwe
30 October 2022
Following talks with a delegation from Zimbabwe, London’s Natural History Museum and Cambridge University have said they are willing to return human remains removed during the colonial era now in their collections. Zimbabwe has long suspected that British collections hold the remains of some of the leaders of the First Chimurenga – an uprising against British rule in the 1890s. In particular, Zimbabweans have been searching for the skull of Mbuya Nehanda, the hero of Zimbabwe’s first revolutionary struggle who, after accused of murdering a British official, was hanged and then beheaded. Nehanda is now lauded as a national heroine, a potent symbol for those fighting against white-minority rule. There’s a popular legend that says following her execution her head was transported to England and placed in a museum collection. All attempts to trace this head have failed and no identification has been possible from the human remains in the London and Cambridge collections. It is quite possible Nehanda’s head never left her country, however, that won’t stop the search continuing. The Zimbabwe delegation also held talks with the British Museum, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the University of Manchester Museum and the UK’s National Archives. But no details of these discussions have been released.
For further restitution news in September & October visit our 'Restitutions by Country' section
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