The skull of an Aboriginal man who is thought to have been killed by colonizers in the early 19th century has been returned for burial in Tasmania from a British university.
The remains of the unidentified young man will be laid to rest in a ceremonial burial on the Australian island on Friday, the University of Aberdeen said in a statement published Wednesday.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, which will hold the long-delayed burial, was first contacted by the Scottish university in 2019 with a proposal for repatriation. This was approved the following year.
Details of how the university came to be in possession of the skull – which is missing its lower jaw – are limited, the university said. What is known is that it was part of the collection of William MacGillivray, professor of natural history at Marischal College, a forerunner of the modern Aberdeen University.
When MacGillivray died in 1852, the university bought his collection. The sale catalog from that purchase described the remains as belonging to a “native of Van Diemen’s Land, who was shot on the Shannon River.” Van Diemen’s Land was the colonial name for Tasmania.
There is no surviving record to explain how the skull was acquired. It was initially kept in the university’s comparative anatomy collection before being transferred to its human culture collection in the early 2000s.
Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used to teach medicine.
According to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, which is quoted in the university statement, there is “no doubt that this skull was removed from the man shot at the Shannon River in order to service (the) trade in Aboriginal body parts.”
It went on to say of the killing, which probably took place in the 1820s or 1830s: “The decapitation was most likely performed by one of the killers, stock-keepers, property owners or lessees involved in or associated with the man’s murder.”
While the man’s identity is unlikely to ever be established, the statement said, he is known to have been part of the Big River tribe, which was completely wiped out.
Andry Sculthorpe, of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, stressed the importance of repatriation. He said: “Aboriginal people feel the enormous responsibility of restoring to our own country both the physical remains, and through them, the spirits of our ancestral dead.
“This is a record of racist attitudes to the study of humanity, including human remains acquired by grave robbing and other immoral activity; in this case, murder.
“We applaud the institutions that have the courage to let go of their perceptions of intellectual supremacy, embrace their own humanity and do what is right by the people who are most impacted by the atrocities they have inflicted in the past. This young man’s murder will not be forgotten and we will bring him home to rest at last.”
The University of Aberdeen said it has “a well-established procedure for considering repatriation from the collections in its care” and previous returns have included a Benin bronze, returned to Nigeria in 2021.
Neil Curtis, the university’s head of museums and special collections, said: “Given the violence and racism that led to their acquisition, it would be unacceptable for these ancestral remains to be used for research, teaching or exhibitions purposes.
“We are pleased that the remains of this young man can now be handed over to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for appropriate burial in his homeland.”