2019

1. 10 September

   The Illinois State Museum in the USA agrees to unconditionally return 42 culturally significant objects of the Aranda people of Central Australia, and Bardi Jawi people of the northern Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia. The Aboriginal nations plan to return them to country and use them in the maintenance and revival of cultural practices, and support intergenerational knowledge transfer.

   The Return of Cultural Heritage project identified some 95,000 Aboriginal objects held in more than 200 overseas collecting institutions around the world. ^[1]

2. 20 November

   Manchester Museum becomes the first UK institution to return sacred ceremonial items to Aboriginal people. The artefacts include a headdress made from emu feathers, body ornaments, slippers, a churinga (wood or stone item believed to embody the spiritual double of a relative or ancestor) and clapsticks. Representatives from the Gangalidda Garawa received the first items.

3. 28 November

   Germany's State of Saxony hands over the ancestral remains of 42 Aboriginal people in Leipzig.

2020

1. 5 October

   The Yindjibarndi people of Roebourne, WA, celebrate the unconditional return of eight secular items from Andover, United Kingdom (UK), where the family of a private collector had held them for more than 100 years. The items include a shield, spear thrower, two boomerangs and four wooden spear heads.

2021

1. February

   The Israel Museum in Jerusalem returns more than 1,800 artefacts including stone tools, grindstones, and other material. Carl Shipman of Melbourne donated the collection to the Israel Museum in the 1970s.

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References