00:04The sound of clapsticks echoes across the valley, merging with the sounds of wildlife
00:09at Borara Creek, telling ancestors past and those gathered that Uncle has finally come
00:15back to country.
00:16He hears the sounds of his mob, of his environment, and they met him and they're still with him
00:22now and it's now good to walk away knowing he's back in where he belongs.
00:25The remains of an Aboriginal man, now referred to as Uncle, were taken from his grave in
00:31the late 1890s and stored in a British museum.
00:34It's a sandalwood, it's a healing plant, so that oil goes into the soil, be embedded with
00:41this ancestor forever.
00:43A traditional smoking ceremony was conducted at the reburial.
00:46That fire and that smoking is a continuation from that first fire that we were gifted by
00:52our creator, so everything is a continuous circle of goodness.
00:57It has been a long journey to bring Uncle home.
01:00Indigenous representatives travelled to England in 2023 after successfully requesting the remains
01:06of 11 ancestors be returned to Australia from the Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum.
01:11It was a promise that we made over there, he said that each community do its best to repatriate
01:18as much as we can because all our style and souls are still over there and they need to
01:23be returned.
01:24The 130 year plus journey to bring this uncle home is the start of healing, but there's still
01:29work to be done.
01:30Overseas, there are more ancestors waiting for their opportunity to return home too.
01:35We all have obligations, you know, to right the wrongs of the past and today we did that.
01:41One ancestor home to rest, many more to come.
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