Central Land Council
in this section
CLC Press Releases
- 14 Augyust 2008 2008
- Communities have their say on intervention ›› more
- 31 July 2008 2008
- Fairfax news in bad taste ›› more
- 24 July 2008 2008
- election: accountability needed ›› more
- 17 July 2008 2008
- Royal commission needed into NT funding ›› more
- 11 July 2008 2008
- Simpson Desert: the last land rights claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act ›› more
- 8 July 2008 2008
- Sacred site damage at Wilora ›› more
- 30 May 2008
- Seal the Mereenie Loop Road Now ›› more
- 27 May 2008
- Angela Pamela Negotiations ›› more
- 9 May 2008
- Angela Pamela and the native title process ›› more
- 18 February 2008
- Coalition should support permit system ›› more
- 15 February 2008
- Politicians threaten to derail fresh start ›› more
- 22 January 2008
- Police ignorance upsets Lajamanu community ›› more
- 26 November 2007
- Optimism for a fresh consensual approach on Aboriginal affairs ›› more
- 21 November 2007
- Concerns over Central Petroleum tactics ›› more
SACRED MATERIAL PUT ON HOLD A plan for Australian museums to return all indigenous human remains and secret/sacred material to their rightful communities by 2001 - or reach protection agreements - has been put on hold. Culture ministers from around Australia discussed the proposal at a meeting in December, but because of a shortage of time, were unable to agree on the proposal. They will look at it again at their next meeting later this year. Meanwhile Museums Australia Inc, the peak body within the museums industry, is continuing to work on two repatriation programs - the National Secret/Sacred Inventory and the National Human Remains Provenancing Program. The Secret / Sacred Inventory is a data base which simplifies and speeds up repatriation. Instead of community members having to travel to museums around the country searching for items, they can use the Inventory to pinpoint which museums hold their secret sacred materials. One community cannot access another community's information and only senior law people will have access to the data. The National Human Remains Provenancing Program is an attempt to redress past practices of anthropologists, archaeologists and private individuals who collected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander human remains for study and in some cases for public display. Australian museums no longer collect, display or study human remains, but one of the legacies of this practice is that there are approximately 8000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander human remains that are unprovenanced (unidentified). The provenancing project aims to identify as accurately as possible the origin of the remains so they can be dealt with by appropriate communities. Museums Australia's Standing Committee on Museums and Indigenous People has proposed a national summit to discuss how to deal with unprovenanced ancestral remains. The Committee believes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need to make decisions on what to do with unidentified remains, with the establishment of a national memorial cemetery one possibility. |
