Waluwarra ancestors reunited with family after museums uncover century‑old removals

Waluwarra Traditional Owners have been reunited with the remains of three ancestors whose bodies were taken from Country in north‑west Queensland and held for decades in institutions in Germany and Australia.

The Bularnu Waluwarra Wangkayujuru Aboriginal Corporation was contacted by the federal arts department after staff identified Aboriginal remains from a cattle station on Waluwarra Country, near Mount Isa, in the anatomy collection of the University of Cologne. 

Further checks uncovered two more ancestors: one at the Australian Museum in Sydney and another at Queensland Museum in Brisbane. The family travelled from the Gulf Country to Sydney for a repatriation ceremony, before the ancestors were welcomed to Brisbane, where they will stay in a secure keeping place while community arrangements are made to return them to Country.

Museum records show two of the Waluwarra people were sold to the Australian Museum in 1905 by Walter Roth, then Queensland’s chief protector of Aborigines. Roth sold 2,500 artefacts, including 97 human specimens, to the museum – a controversial deal that helped trigger his resignation the following year. 

The third ancestor was not part of that sale. Road workers discovered a body outside Mount Isa in 1973; forensic testing suggested the remains were more than a century old. They were kept under the state coroner’s care until 2016, when they were transferred to Queensland Museum’s repatriation program.

At the Sydney ceremony, representatives from the Australian and Queensland museums formally apologised to the Waluwarra people. Community leader Sylvia Price said the family did not want to hold on to anger against today’s museum staff, and that welcoming their ancestors home meant “now it’s time for healing”.

The Waluwarra journey is part of a much larger national effort. The Office for the Arts reports that by late 2024 about 1,735 First Nations ancestors had been returned from overseas institutions and private collectors, including 162 from German collections. International returns in the past year alone include ancestors from Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, New Zealand and Austria.

These stories resonate far beyond Waluwarra Country. ABS estimates show there were 983,700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Australia at 30 June 2021, making up 3.8 per cent of the population; nearly three‑quarters live in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. For communities across those states, the safe return of ancestors is a tangible step towards truth‑telling and repair.