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.

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