Artefact and bone collectors apologise for past wrongs
A historic apology has been delivered to Tasmania’s Aboriginal community as specimen collectors acknowledge their practices were racist and morally wrong, saying it “will never happen again”. ... FEB 15 2021
TASMANIA’S Aboriginal community has received a historic apology for the racist desecration and disrespect shown to human remains and other artefacts by two local organisations as they collected natural history specimens..
The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery made the apology in an emotional ceremony in Hobart on Monday.
It was accepted by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s Michael Mansell who did so on behalf of “those sent to Wybalenna, those pushed into slum housing at Invermay and those discriminated against in pubs and places of employment” and current generations.
“This unreserved apology is long overdue. We acknowledge the Royal Society exhumed and purchased remains of Aboriginal people for scientific study – some of which were sent out of the country,” society president Mary Koolhof said.
“There was a lack of regard for the deep cultural and spiritual significance of remains.”
She promised seek full accounts of the past actions of the society and its members and support repatriation of artefacts when asked.
TMAG Chair Brett Torossi said the organisation had now “owned” past practices which were morally wrong, racist and profoundly disrespectful.
“The Board wants to permanently record and apologise for the institution’s actions and declare such behaviour will never happen again,” Ms Torossi said.
“It is heartbreaking to consider the trauma inflicted. We commit to a future to defend and illuminate Tasmanian Aboriginal culture”
Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner – patron of both organisations – said the acts of desecration and disrespect were accompanied by the assertion of extinction.
.
The apologies come as plans to return rock carvings taken from Tasmania’s far north west progress.
Sixty years ago, ancient Tasmanian Aboriginal petroglyphs were cut out of rock near Marrawah, thrown on the back of a flatbed truck and roughly transported from the far North-West to be displayed at museums in Hobart and Launceston.
Pieces of the rock, which was a record of thousands of years of Aboriginal history, broke off as the truck rumbled along.
The petroglyphs show major events such as the sighting of Halley’s comet, the death of great Aboriginal warriors, where village communities were, and the tracks that carried people between them.
Now, after an almost 40-year fight by Aboriginal leaders, the petroglyphs are going home.
TODAY is a very significant day in Tasmania. It is a day when the depth and dimension of the island's histories has reached a new point with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery(TMAG) in concert with the Royal Society of Tasmania publicly apologising to Aboriginal people.
The hope that underlines the apology is that it will be followed with attitudinal change and continued consultation with Aboriginal Tasmanians is, hopefully, a very significant turning point in Tasmania.
Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell, has said there was a "real trade in the Aboriginal dead being sent to the mainland of Australia and to good old Mother England".(ABC News: Laura Beavis).
Elsewhere, Michael Mansel has said "It was only after that – [receiving some federal funding in the 1970s under Gough Whitlam ] –we could bring the simmering of Aboriginal resentment against white people and what white people had done against us into a political movement."
So, today's apology will no doubt go down the State's historic record as a day of reconciliation that has, up to now, seemed somewhat out of reach. Moreover, it goes beyond the contentious 'theft and appropriation' of the Preminghana petroglyphs.
The City of Launceston's Mayor apologised to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community during NAIDOC Week 2020 and somewhat sadly Council has thus chosen not to endorse the TMAG's and the Royal Society's apology today.
Notably, Launceston's Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) – Australia's largest regional art gallery and museum – has been front and centre in the appropriation and 'theft' of the Preminghana petroglyphs and quite possibly well before the TMAG became involved.
Michael Mansell has not been alone in his advocation for the return of the petroglyphs. Peter C. Sims, an independent Launceston based researcher, now living away from the city, has been a tireless advocate. His recent monograph, "Tasmanian Aboriginal Rock Art PREMINGHANA (Mount Cameron West) 2020" catalogues his research and advocacy.
The University of Tasmania's Prof. Greg Lehman, on the ABC today, has eloquently and poignantly contextualised today's apology.
Launceston in the past prided itself in leading on issues such as this, albeit that like elsewhere in the colonial aftermath, its institutions have erred. In the light of the city's emerging, and ever evolving, 'Cultural Strategy' the city sadly seems to be distancing itself from today's apology and disinclined to endorse to it.
Nonetheless, The Launceston Concerned Citizens Network wholeheartedly endorses today's apology and looks forward to an attitudinal change and continued consultation going forward.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE AND WATCH VIDEOTwo of Tasmania's oldest institutions will today apologise to the state's Aboriginal communities for stealing and mistreating cultural heritage for more than a century.The apology by the Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) was partly brought about because of the decades-long battle by traditional owners to get 14,000-year-old ancient rock art out of museum collections and back to it's sacred home at Preminghana in the state's far north-westThat will go ahead next month with a major logistical exercise to transport the damaged art from one end of the state to the other.The hard-fought battle for the return of the petroglyphs, however, is only part of the long, dark history of misusing Aboriginal remains and artefactsKey points:The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Society of Tasmania will publicly apologise to Aboriginal peopleThe institutions played pivotal roles in exhuming Aboriginal bodies and stealing artefacts in the name of scienceIt's hoped the apology will be followed with attitudinal change and continued consultation with Aboriginal TasmaniansThe apology by the Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) was partly brought about because of the decades-long battle by traditional owners to get 14,000-year-old ancient rock art out of museum collections and back to it's sacred home at Preminghana in the state's far north-west.WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this article contains images of people who have died.What did they do that was so bad?The Tasmanian Royal Society was founded in 1843, making it the oldest one in the country, and set about creating collections for the advancement of knowledge, as is it's motto.
Even for Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Preminghana carvings are mysterious.(ABC News: Manika Dadson)
Those collections were shown at what became the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG).
In the 19th century, as debate raged among colonial settlers and their colleagues in Europe about the Darwinian theory of evolution, the bodies of Tasmanian Aboriginal people became highly prized.
"If you look at it like a ladder of world cultures, Aboriginal people in Australia were seen as being at the bottom of this ladder, and the very bottom of all was Tasmanian Aborigines, they were seen as the simplest, most primitive people in the world, for various misguided reasons," Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania, Rebe Taylor, said.
TMAG has two permanent exhibitions curated by Aboriginal Tasmanians.(ABC Hobart: Damien Peck)
The demand for Aboriginal remains only grew as the population dwindled as the Government tried to rid the island of it's native people, falling from somewhere between five thousand and eight thousand in 1803, to a couple of hundred in the 1830s.
Circular carvings at preminghana on Tasmania's north-west coast.(ABC News: Manika Dadson)
One of the most egregious examples of this was the case of William Lanne — an Aboriginal man who died of a gastrointestinal infection in 1869 and became the centre of a fight over his body.
Politician William Crowther decapitated Lanne's corpse for the Royal Society and switched the head for one of a non-Aboriginal man in an attempt to cover it up.
According to Paul Turnbull's book on the subject, resident surgeon George Stokell then sawed off Lanne's hands and feet, which were taken to the museum.
Both Stokell and Crowther were sanctioned, but the latter went on to become Tasmania's 14th premier in 1878.
While welcoming the apology, Michael Mansell said "they're still white institutions in a white Tasmanian society".(Imogen Johnston)
Pro-Vice Chancellor of Aboriginal Leadership at the University of Tasmania and Aboriginal man, Greg Lehman said these two institutions "probably have more to apologise for than most institutions in Tasmania."
Famous Aboriginal woman Truganini heard of what happened to Lanne and expressed her wish to be cremated at sea upon her death, but that didn't happen.
Instead, the Royal Society exhumed her body and put her skeleton on display in TMAG until 1947, when it was taken down.
It wasn't until 1976 that her wish was fulfilled — a century after she died.
Michael Mansell, said there was a "real trade in the Aboriginal dead being sent to the mainland of Australia and to good old Mother England".(ABC News: Laura Beavis)
'Simmering resentment' becomes action
Chair of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, Michael Mansell, started working on getting Aboriginal property back when he was in his twenties.
"We were continually humiliated, we were offended by the way white people did things to us," he said.
He said they were "powerless" until they received some federal funding in the 1970s under Gough Whitlam, after which Aboriginal people organised themselves to create a public push for the return of remains and artefacts.
"We'd become aware in the 1980s that Aboriginal remains had been sent overseas by a range of doctors and surgeons in Hobart, who were paying money to people to dig up Aboriginal bodies.
"There was this real trade in the Aboriginal dead being sent over to the mainland of Australia and to good old Mother England… and so in 1985 I went around the world and got some of them back," Mr Mansell said.
Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Truganini's remains were put on display against her wishes.(Supplied: The British Museum)
Ms Taylor said Aboriginal communities in Tasmania led "one of the earliest, most effective" repatriation movements from the 1970s onwards, creating slow but dramatic progress.
"It was only when the Aboriginal community became vocal and were listened to, even unwillingly by scientists, that things changed."
Mr Lehman said progress has been made at TMAG, which has two permanent exhibitions curated by Aboriginal Tasmanians, and has pakana woman Zoe Rimmer as Senior Curator of Indigenous Cultures.
"They symbolise something quite significant in even the institutions that have done the most appalling things can demonstrate the moral leadership and substance that's involved in saying 'look, we did the wrong thing and we want to commit ourselves to making sure these things don't happen again'," Mr Lehman said.
Mr Mansell described as "significant" that the handing over of the petroglyphs came with "an admission that they never should have had them in the first place".
It was, he said, an "acknowledgment that it is a destruction of Aboriginal society's cultural connections with our past and the people today".
Aboriginal advocates say it will "take some time" to shift attitudes.(AAP/Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council)
Apology 'just the start'
While Mr Mansell sees the apology as a step forward, he said it's just the start of a long process.
He emphasised saying sorry would have to be backed up by continuous action, both in engaging Aboriginal people in the museum curatorship process and returning materials when asked.
Archaeologists took the petroglyphs from Preminghana before there were laws to prevent it.(ABC News: Manika Dadson)
Ms Taylor said she hoped the apology would acknowledge the full extent of the harm done, including the lengthy portrayal of Aboriginal Tasmanians as the least advanced species in the world.
"The tendency of the apology may be to look to those horrors of the 19th century because they're horrific and the most well-known, but I think what is often overlooked is the mistreatment and misrepresentation that continued well into the 20th century."
Mr Lehman said he'd personally like to see an apology from the State Government "for it's part in the attempted removal, or extermination, of Tasmanian Aboriginal people".
"It was an insidious final solution, and I don't use that term lightly, and many people internationally saw it as an attempted genocide."
Key points:
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Society of Tasmania will publicly apologise to Aboriginal people
The institutions played pivotal roles in exhuming Aboriginal bodies and stealing artefacts in the name of science
It's hoped the apology will be followed with attitudinal change and continued consultation with Aboriginal TasmaniansThe apology by the Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) was partly brought about because of the decades-long battle by traditional owners to get 14,000-year-old ancient rock art out of museum collections and back to it's sacred home at Preminghana in the state's far north-west.
CONTEXT NOTE: The mayor and his deputy were made aware of the TMAG's and the Royal Society's declared intentions and 'Town Hall' did not, and has not responded. It would seem that John Howard'sBLACK ARMBAND VIEW OF HISTORY is adhered to in Launceston. Neither has the QVMAG responded thus far.
Launceston's Intransigent Cultural Recalcitrance Exposed
TMAG, Royal Society to apologise to Tasmanian Aboriginal community as part of petroglyphs return
‘Workers remove the 14,000-year-old Preminghana petroglyphs from their original location on the far-North-West Coast in the 1960s. They are part of a network of Aboriginal rock carvings.
Two of Tasmania's longest-running institutions will formally apologise to the Aboriginal community as part of the process in repatriating the Preminghana petroglyphs to their home on the far-North- West Coast.
The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery will offer paired apologies on February 15 "in recognition of the shared history of the organisations".
The text of the apology will be made available on the day. A TMAG spokesperson said it was part of the reconciliation process.
MORE ON THE PREMINGHANA PETROGLYPHS:
Aboriginal leader slams wait for rock carvings return
City of Launceston agrees to repatriate Preminghana petroglyphs
NAIDOC Week 2020: urgent call for petroglyphs' return
TMAG agrees to pass on final permit to Aboriginal leaders
"Whilst the apology event and the physical return of the petroglyphs are not happening on the same day, they are both a demonstration of TMAG's commitment to strengthening its relationship with the Tasmanian Aboriginal community," she said.
The Royal Society was involved in the practice of exhuming the bodies of Aboriginal Tasmanians before they would be dismembered and often displayed to the public.
The practice continued throughout the 19th century and included the mutilation of the bodies of the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanians, Truganini and William Lanne.
TMAG included the remains of Aboriginal people in its collections.
Along with the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, TMAG stored the Preminghana petroglyphs after their removal in the 1960s.
The 14,000-year-old petroglyphs will be returned to their original location on the far-North West Coast in early March, involving transportation by truck and the possible use of a helicopter to lift the several-tonne rock carvings into place.
Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell said the apologies from the two institutions were an important step.
"It signifies a change of attitude in Tasmanian society, reflected by two fairly conservative institutions who are now taking responsibility for their past actions, rather than just saying 'here's the petroglyphs, take them, we're not going to talk about what we did'," he said.
"They're saying 'let's open the books, and let's be honest and truthful about how we got them, how we disregarded the feelings of Aboriginal people, and did what we wanted to do because we were part of white society'."
END
OPINION
As Michael Mansell has said, this is an important step. Nonetheless, why isn’t the city of Launceston and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QMAG) apologising as well?
Somewhat ironically Minister Jaensch, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, left it to Remembrance Day, Nov 11, 2020 to remember to ‘approve’ the petroglyphs’ handback.
Both Council and the QVMAG have much to do in regard to reconciliation and yet again they have been found wanting.
Michael Stretton’s assertion, or was he deeming it, and in open council, that the city’s councillors were not QVMAG Trustees was and is a flawed understanding of the councillors’ governance role in regard to the QVMAG’s collections.
Likewise, Mr Stretton’s assertion that the QVMAG’s petroglyphs were being “deaccessioned” which, on the evidence, couldn’t be so or even verified as there is no evidence of them ever being ‘accessioned’ – formally taken into the QVMAG’s ‘ownership’.
By extension, this implies that the petroglyphs were stolen, or on loan or on the very best construction ‘taken into the institution’s care’ given that that at the time it was imagined and assumed that Tasmania’s Aboriginal people became ‘extinct’ with Truganini’s death.
The Councillors were not required to approve the petroglyph’s “deaccession”. What they had the opportunity to do was to just hand them back to the pakana people given that there was no ‘demonstrable ownership’ in any context to relinquish – except perhaps by bureaucratic deeming.
It turns out that her death was all so convenient in the context of the colonial aftermath given that she had a sister living on Kangaroo Island and Fanny Cochrane Smith lived on in southern Tasmania until she died in 1905.
So, the QVMAG is deeply embedded in all this as an institution’s and by extension Council too. Clearly, both the City of Launceston and the QVMAG have obligations here and no amount of ‘history smoothing’ will absolve either.
Moreover, there are reports that the QVMAG has in its collection still a plaster cast of a petroglyph taken from Preminghana quite likely circa 1930.
Why is this not being discussed or has it – they?– been destroyed in some history sanitising process?
In the vernacular, it’s ‘FESS UP TIME’ and ‘fence mending time’ down at Launceston’s Town Hall!
Launcestonians are diminished by the city’s governance’s and ‘cultural custodians’ recalcitrance and it is time that they ought not be.
