A sacred carved tree has been returned to the Gamilaraay people of northeast New South Wales, nearly a century after it was taken from Country. With hundreds of thousands of cultural artefacts still held in museums, institutions, and private collections worldwide, it's hoped this repatriation will inspire further returns.
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00:00Not just a piece of wood or part of a tree, to Gamilaroi people this is a living, breathing
00:08ancestor.
00:09I feel blessed to be able to have access to our historic teaching method for my own children.
00:17I think it's wonderful.
00:19That's an extension of their family, that Dulu, so extremely important in terms of that
00:24being repatriated.
00:29The centuries-old Dulu, a carved river red gum, was cut down in the early 20th century
00:35and transported to Sydney before being sold to a Swiss researcher who gifted the carving
00:40to a museum in Switzerland.
00:42There it stayed for more than 80 years before being rediscovered in the museum's storage
00:47area by a Gamilaroi researcher.
00:50There's hundreds of thousands of cultural items that are held in museums and collections
00:54all over the world.
00:56Over the past six years, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
01:01has successfully led negotiations to repatriate more than 2,000 cultural heritage items, including
01:08this Dulu.
01:09We ensure that Australia's First Nations communities are in the driving seat in those conversations.
01:16One hundred and forty overseas collecting institutions have registered a willingness
01:20to collaborate on repatriation, up from 80 18 months ago.
01:25Which is great to see, but it means that we've got decades and decades and decades
01:30of work in terms of repatriating material back to country.
01:33If we really want to have reconciliation, if we really want to have a friendship, then
01:39we should be supporting it in a cultural manner.
01:42Get in the game.
01:43Reawakening culture and helping to right past wrongs.