Words: Lara Thorpe (she/her)
‘The situation for Tasmanian Aboriginal people since invasion has meant that every cultural piece made by our ancestors is precious and rare and maintains our connection with our culture and identity.’
The Oxford English Dictionary defines repatriation as the ‘return or restoration of money, historical artefacts, etc., to their country of origin’. Whilst useful, this definition does not convey the complex implications of repatriation for both identity and culture, specifically within an Indigenous context. Cultural heritage, understood as material objects which are entrenched with social meanings, plays a considerable role within Indigenous belief systems. Despite this, there has been a historic Western reluctance or refusal to return such artefacts. Concentrating on Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum and its recent decision to return a rare shell necklace to Tasmania, I’m going to look into how repatriation can act as a mechanism of ancestral connection for the Tasmananian Aboriginal community. How does the necklace’s history show the significance of its return to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community?
In 1877, the heiress Mrs Margaret Miller donated a necklace of Tasmanian origin to the Hunterian Museum. This necklace, consisting of elenchus or maireener shells, would have been created by a woman from the Bass Strait Island using intergenerational cultural techniques. European collectors of the time enjoyed Indigenous artefacts, like this necklace, with little regard for the societal importance that they held within their communities of origin. This attitude proved pervasive. In both 1995 and 2002 the Hunterian Museum refused appeals by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for the necklace’s return, stating that it would not be repatriating the necklace as there was no evidence suggesting that the ‘acquisition of the Bass Straits necklace was unethical’. This claim explicitly ignores both the unequal power dynamic present within the colonial collection of Indigenous artefacts, and the cultural significance of such items for current Aboriginal communities.
In my opinion, the 30 year refusal to repatriate the necklace is indicative of the long standing colonial mindset and entitlement held within British museums. However, 2020 saw important shifts in these colonial attitudes and racial politics, impacting the perspective of British museums; the Hunterian museum launched its ‘2021-2025 Strategic Plan’ aimed at fostering inclusivity. In 2025, the Hunterian Museum finally announced the repatriation of the necklace. In response, the Aboriginal community Elder, Jeanette James, stated that the ability for Aboriginal peoples to showcase material artefacts are vital in ‘projects aimed at recovering traditional knowledge’.
According to Federico Lenzerini, an expert in International Law and Human Rights, Indigenous is a broad term which often relates to communities who hold a holistic worldview. This means that although there is diversity throughout Indigenous belief systems, frequently objects, people, and animals are seen as spiritually and historically interconnected. Indigenous cultural heritage means viewing objects as not only material, but also deeply intertwined with spiritual and ancestral heritage. Applying this understanding to the Tasmanian shell necklace shows that the artefact is crucial to the community’s current identity as it provides connection to ancestral knowledge. Necklace making is an inherent and historical custom within Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, stretching back thousands of years. The rarity of this necklace means that it is an important learning example today, enabling a greater current understanding of necklace making within the community.
Displaying the necklace within Tasmania provides an important bridge between past and current understandings of Tasmanian Aboriginal identity – a bridge that is of increasing importance as climate change reduces the number of shells available for this practice. The threat that climate change poses to the practice and, by extension, Indigenous identity is considerable since physical artefacts like the necklace play a major role in preserving tradition. If these connections are lost and artefacts remain disconnected from Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, fundamental elements of their culture are at risk of also being lost.
Emphasising the significance of this cultural loss, a project manager for the Tasmanian Aboriginal centre, Andry Sculthorpe, stated: ‘The situation for Tasmanian Aboriginal people since invasion has meant that every cultural piece made by our ancestors is precious and rare and maintains our connection with our culture and identity.’ His comment conveys the importance of repatriation for building present-day, and future, communities through connection with ancestral objects. Without this cultural heritage, the community may be altered in ways which would negatively impact understandings of both community and self identity. Physical objects are integral to the framework of Indigenous culture and society. The repatriation of the rare shell necklace to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community is indicative of this, emphasising the crucial need for more objects of cultural heritage held within British museums to be repatriated to their original communities.
References
