FOCUS: Japan returns Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander remains to Australia

Kyodo News

21-06-2025

By Rachael Bayliss-Chan, KYODO NEWS - 1 minute ago - 07:29 | World, All
Japan has returned the remains of 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to Australia in the country's first such repatriation, marking the latest move in a global movement to return the human remains of indigenous peoples once taken abroad for research or collection.
The remains, taken in the 19th and 20th centuries and held by three Japanese research institutions, were handed over to representatives of the Australian government and Aboriginal communities in a ceremony at the Australian Embassy in Tokyo last week, before being flown home, according to the government.
At Australia's request, Japan's education ministry surveyed holdings of Indigenous Australian remains in the country and identified those held by the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and the National Museum of Nature and Science.
Seven of the 10 sets returned came from the University of Tokyo, including the remains of an ancestor of the Kaurna people of South Australia, whose community was represented at the handover ceremony.
The government statement quoted Mitzi Nam as saying the return of the remains to country means "pathways to healing can start for all generations."
"For many years the ancestral remains of Kaurna Old People were collected by museums and universities without consent, which caused great sadness and anger, and these feelings have been carried for generations," she said.
Responding to a request for comment, the University of Tokyo said, "We have become keenly aware of the necessity to sincerely face the fact that research institutions around the world, including Japan, have kept the remains of Indigenous peoples."
Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said the first repatriation from Japan "reinforces the continuing shift by collecting institutions internationally to righting some of the past injustices carried out against First Nations people."
According to the government, Australia has been working with collecting institutions across the globe to secure the return of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's remains for over 30 years, with more than 1,785 sets so far repatriated from overseas collections, including those kept in Japan.
Of those, over 1,300 were from institutions and private holdings in Britain, including the Natural History Museum in London.
Indigenous people's remains and personal belongings were taken from burial sites and communities across Australia, often without consent, for more than 250 years since Australia came under colonial rule in the late 18th century.
Many were collected for so-called scientific research aimed at classifying human biological differences, often under 19th-century theories that placed Indigenous Australians at or near the bottom of a racial hierarchy used to justify European superiority and colonial domination.
In other cases, remains were obtained by private collectors and sold, passing through many hands before ending up in museums.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have long called for the return of their ancestors' remains, with the movement initially gaining momentum in the 1970s and 1980s.
Remains of indigenous peoples in other countries have also been taken from their homelands for research and other purposes.
According to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo repatriated 10 remains of native Hawaiians to Hawaii last year.
Remains of indigenous Ainu people in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four main islands, had been taken abroad for anthropological research since before World War II. They have been found in Australia, Germany, Britain and the United States.
In 2023, Australia returned four sets of Ainu remains to Japan, more than 80 years after they were acquired.