Indigenous artefacts ready for 3,000km journey home to Mornington Island

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2 days ago

For decades, bark paintings, traditional tools and boomerangs have been hidden away in the dark, thousands of kilometres from ancestral country.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains an image of people who have died.
Untouched and completely forgotten about, it took 50 years for staff in Victoria's Baw Baw Shire to discover the items in storage.
"Our council found 37 articles in storage here in [the town of] Warragul and we had to try and figure out what they were doing in our collection," Baw Baw Shire Mayor Danny Goss said.
Gifted by the Lardil people of Mornington Island in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria, the items are now set to make the 3,000-kilometre journey home.
"There was a letter of provenance with the items that indicated they'd been donated to us by Colin and Elizabeth Goldberg, who lived here in the 1980s until 1995," Cr Goss said.
The couple have since died, but the council tracked down their daughters who helped fill in some of the blanks.
"Mr Goldberg helped establish a commercial art business there, apparently, and he was gifted these," Cr Goss said.
"There are things like bark paintings, mixed items like tools, boomerangs, headdresses, vases, there's quite a range of items that are part of the collection.
"I'm no expert but it's my understanding these are some of the first commercial works, they were gifted, so we're hoping to bring them back."
On Mornington Island, art centre manager John Armstrong was the first to receive the call offering the return of the works.
"We're very fortunate here that we do have a keeping place, when these works come back, they will be kept and properly documented.
"They'll be available for research and available for the community to look at and gain some clues about the way that the old people did things."
Lardil woman Renee Ngandawarrkirr Wilson, 43, has lived on the island all her life, working alongside Mr Armstrong to preserve the culture of her people.
She said it was no surprise the Goldbergs were able to gather an impressive collection.
"Lardil people have always had an adoptive culture where we would adopt people," she said.
"[They] come to the community, work here and they would become a part of our family.
"Each object is a part of our cultural identity, and it carries ancestral knowledge, and cultural significance to us.
She said her people want to see the continued return of knowledge.
"They do, it can help our youth to understand what it took to make these objects, so then you're transferring knowledge," Ms Wilson said.
"You can see that the quality of work was different to what it is now, and it can teach our young ones, whether it be used in dance or, you know, painting.
An exact date for the return is yet to be set, but Cr Goss said it would not be at a cost to the ratepayer.
"It's a long way from Warragul but I feel that I should take them back personally, I'll pay for that myself," he said.
"We'll be looking to do that in the next month or two."
Kurnai elder Aunty Cheryl Drayton from West Gippsland led a smoking ceremony to mark the start of the artefacts' journey home.
She said it was an important part of reconciliation for the local community.
"In doing this ritual, it would mean a lot to the Mornington Island people, that this was carried out respectfully, and with due interest to return the items to them."
This collection is the most recent offer of repatriation to the island but not the first.
In 2022, a precious First Nations headdress was returned to Mornington Island after spending more than 50 years in the United Kingdom.
Mr Armstrong suggests they have seen more offers to return objects in the past 18 months.
"We were getting, or probably one or two offers of repatriation a month — sometimes with a couple of works, sometimes only one," he said.
It seems obvious to the art centre manager that this was a direct link to the discussion and vote on Australia having a federal Voice to Parliament.
"I suspect that since the referendum, the awareness of First Nations cultural heritage has probably increased, Mr Armstrong said.
"It's really moving when that happens, that someone has been here and part of the community and decided they want to give back.
Not all returns are of a similar size to this collection, with some more ordinary items also being returned.
"A couple of months ago I had a small shell turn up in a post bag, it had no artwork or significance," Mr Armstrong said.
"It was something that this person who was here as a nurse in the 60s picked up on the beach and now she said, 'I think this should go back where it came from.'"