00:02We're going somewhere few people ever get to visit, to observe something truly unique.
00:10Nestled on the coast of North East Arnhem Land, Banyala homeland is one of the most remote
00:15communities in the country.
00:18Today, the Yolngu clan groups are celebrating a homecoming and mourning a loss.
00:24Almost a century ago, University of Melbourne anthropologist Donald Thompson came to these
00:31lands and took hundreds of artefacts, including ancestral remains.
00:37You can see a lot of people here that we talk, maybe they are a generation of those people.
00:48So this is really important.
00:50Unfortunately at that time, the laws of Australia did not protect Aboriginal people's rights
00:57and grave robbing is now illegal.
01:03Today, their descendants are returning the bones of their ancestors to the earth after decades of separation.
01:12They didn't come for nothing. They have to come and join with us.
01:17We've been invited to capture this historic occasion, a sacred ceremony never before seen by outsiders,
01:25honouring the ancestors and returning them back to their country.
01:30We together came together to put them back to the sand where they will come to Asis to Asis and
01:42that's the best.
01:43It's taken decades of work and the road hasn't always been easy.
01:48It's very sadness that, you know, these things should have been doing that in the past, you know.
01:54True telling is not about the past primarily, it's about the present and the future and how we right the
02:01wrongs of the past to build better relationships going forward.
02:06It's such a privilege to be able to witness an event like this and in such a beautiful place.
02:12But it's also a reminder that so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are still fighting to have their
02:18ancestors, art and artefacts returned.
02:21Not just in Australia, but from across the world.
02:24It is my hope that one day all of the collections will be returned in ownership to the peoples from
02:34whom they were taken.
02:35Our university is, this is our university, you know, the nature of this land.
02:42A long journey to set wrongs right.
Comments