For centuries, indigenous populations in the North of Australia have used carved pieces of wood as a mean of cultural and spiritual expression. This particular etched bark was made by the Dja Dja Warrun people in the early 19th century, and taken from their original owners in 1854 by the European anthropologist John Hunter Kerr, who had it displayed at the 1855 Paris International Exposition and later sold it to the British Museum. The importance of this item lies on its controversial dispossession and the activism movement surrounding it, led by the Dja Dja Wurrung’s Yung Balug clan elder Gary Murray.
Murray, in representation of his clan, has opened a dialogue with the British Museum
curators in order to get this piece back to its country of origin, which has for now only
resulted in it being loaned to Australian museums on two different occasions. During
these loaning processes, the First Nations people have tried to apply the federal
Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act to seize this artifact, but their aim has not yet been
accomplished, as the British Museum still shows no intention to definitively transfer it
back to its original location.
Bark paintings are of incredible religious and historical significance to the Dja Dja
Wurrung community because of the organic nature of its medium. These items have
always been seen as undeniably linked to the land they come from; and for the
descendants of those who originally carved this wooden piece, it is one of the few
examples of physical cultural heritage left by their ancestors. It is for these reasons that
the repatriation of this piece is deemed necessary. Moreover, it must be understood that
this artifact will never be more interesting for the visitors of the British Museum than it
is sacred for the aboriginal communities, as explained by the Dja Dja Wurrung people
themselves.
This particular etched bark is but a sample of the numerous items of similarly high cultural
value for First Nations People that were taken to Europe as ethnographic museum pieces
during the colonization process. The conversations and controversy surrounding it
exemplifies the need to recontextualize said museum pieces, return them to their owners,
acknowledge the circumstances of their acquisition and make their history available to
the public