'Momentous day' as Aboriginal ancestors' remains repatriated in Arnhem Land

Yolŋu remains repatriated in Arnhem Land as Melbourne University confronts 'wrongs of the past' Fri 31 Jul 2026 at 7:15am In short: After sitting for decades in a collection in Melbourne, the remains of nine Yolŋu ancestors have been sung back onto their country in the remote Northern Territory. Elders who had been pushing for the remains to be returned to Arnhem Land for years have heralded the ceremony as a milestone. What's next? Melbourne University is calling for institutions around the world, including in the UK, Germany and Italy, to follow suit and work to repatriate sacred cultural objects. At a remote burial ground in Arnhem Land, nine Aboriginal ancestors have finally been laid to rest, following a rare and historic repatriation ceremony aimed at helping to heal the "wrongs of the past". The remains of the Yolŋu ancestors were taken from the Northern Territory between 85 and 90 years ago by University of Melbourne anthropologist Donald Thomson. In the decades since then, they had been sitting in a collection in Victoria, until new provenance research helped connect them back to their Arnhem Land communities. By the waters of Blue Mud Bay in Bäniyala, the Maḏarrpa clan hosted a ceremony yesterday to mark the end of a years-long process to bring their ancestors home. The ashes of the remains were placed in larrakitj (log coffins) and buried on top of a hill, a Christian cross above them, as the community's men sang the ancestral beings back onto their sacred land. Maḏarrpa clan leader and renowned artist Djambawa Marawili, who was at the forefront of advocating for the repatriation, said it was a momentous day for Yolŋu people. "We need to show our young ones, so they know some of our ancestral heritage was taken away and stored on other people's country," he said. "We need to show the future generations our culture has remained, and we can bring our ancestors back through the same song cycles and ceremonies of our forefathers." Melbourne University Laureate Professor Marcia Langton, who has also been a long-term advocate for the repatriation of sacred and secret cultural objects, attended the Bäniyala ceremony and said the remains should never have been removed. "The importance of returning ancestors and secret or sacred objects to clans and homelands cannot be underestimated," she said. "They should not have been taken in the first place and have been held for too long in the so-called care of institutions, too far away from their families and clans." Global push to return sacred objects Melbourne University interim vice-chancellor Glyn Davis also called on institutions globally to follow suit in returning secret and sacred objects to their ancestral homes. "The return of ancestors to country is a profound responsibility for universities and collecting institutions in Australia and worldwide," Professor Davis said. "Universities are now confronting the legacies of collecting practices centuries ago. "We will work with communities for as long as necessary so ancestors and cultural heritage material can be returned to the places, families and custodians where they belong." In a bid to get its message out to institutions around the world, the university will today send translated statements detailing the Bäniyala ceremony to institutions in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Indonesia, Norway, Italy and the Czech Republic. University stands by complex legacy Melbourne University has held Aboriginal remains and sacred cultural objects in its collection since the 1870s, and is now in the process of trying to repatriate many of them to dozens of communities across Australia. The university's deputy vice-chancellor (Indigenous), Barry Judd, said it was a chance to acknowledge "the wrongs of the past [and] to strengthen and heal for a better future". Including the ceremony in Bäniyala, 14 ancestors have been returned to the Maḏarrpa, Dhaḻwaŋu, Djapu, Dhuḏi-Djapu, Marrakulu and Maŋgalili clans in north-east Arnhem Land over the past week. The remains were all originally collected by renowned Australian anthropologist Donald Thomson. Professor Thomson travelled widely in remote Arnhem Land, Far North Queensland and Central Australia in the first half of last century, as well as across the Pacific, to learn about the social lives of their remote residents. The University of Melbourne has continued to pay its respects to Professor Thomson's legacy in academia and as a friend and advocate for Aboriginal people, while at the same time acknowledging his outdated practice of taking remains did a "great injustice" to impacted communities. "The Donald Thomson Collection is of immense significance to Aboriginal peoples, and its value to researchers in Australia and internationally concerned with understanding human diversity cannot be underestimated," Professor Langton said. Assembled by Professor Thomson at the university between 1928 and 1965, his collection comprised more than 10,000 objects, alongside photographs, films, audio recordings, field notes, journals, maps and natural science specimens.