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History History

remains on behalf of Māori and Moriori (the indigenous involved in the Palau project.
Polynesian people of New Zealand’s Chatham Islands). Vunidilo undertook post-doctoral work at the University of
Between 1769 and the 1970s, at least 1200 Māori and Göttingen, where she was invited to focus on the repatriation
Moriori human remains were spirited away from their of objects and human remains from the Pacific that were
homelands to private collectors, museums, and institutions previously held in German collections. These include more
overseas. than 1000 human remains from Oceania, 900 of which come
In 2003, the Karanga Aotearoa repatriation program of from Papua New Guinea.
the Museum of New Zealand began the process of returning She is hopeful of further repatriations to Australia and
over 850 kōiwi tangata (Māori skeletal remains), kōimi Nauru.
tchakat (Moriori ancestral remains) and Toi moko (ancestral “Nauru is just putting their letters together for their
mummified heads). ancestral remains to be returned. This is just from one
These remains have come from museums in Switzerland, institution, so my aim is to visit other museums in Germany
Germany, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, the who have contacted me and said they want to return some of
United Kingdom, Austria, France, the United States, Canada, the ancestral returns that they have in their collections. So,
Scotland, and Australia, among other places. this is very exciting, the ball is already rolling from 2022 and I
Meanwhile, McMichael Mutok Jr. registrar with Palau’s think it will be rolling for the next couple of years.”
Bureau of Cultural and Historical Preservation, told the
seminar about the collection of Palauan ancestral remains Reversing colonial anthropology
taken to Germany during Germany’s control of Palau from Vunidilo sees repatriation as empowering local communities
to assert autonomy from the process of colonisation.
“Through colonialism, we often get disempowered to
let go of our land, to let go of our identity, our heritage,
Through colonialism, we often get but repatriation is now reversing that whole process,” says
disempowered to let go of our land, to Vunidilo.
let go of our identity, our heritage, but “Colonial anthropology has more to do with research from
repatriation is now reversing that whole colonial perspective and a non-indigenous perspective,” says
process. Vunidilo. “It is more for them wanting to know the secrets of
indigenous communities, how they make use of their land,
how they make use of their own resources, how they survive.
So, the colonial perspective is mining information for their
1899 to 1914. own benefit, which is the flip side of how myself and a few
Last month, the University of Göttingen and the State others, who are in this space, operate.”
Ethnographic Collections of Saxony in Germany repatriated Repatriation also allows for reconciliation between the
the human remains of 10 individuals to Palau. colonisers and the indigenous populations and communities.
The remains originated from the Hamburg South Seas “The words reciprocity, reconciliation and the word
Expedition (1908-1910) conducted by the then-Museum of relationship all come into the picture when repatriation takes
Ethnology in Hamburg. Ethnologist Paul Hambruch collected place,” says Vunidilo. “It is also a process of healing on lots
the remains during a 1909 visit to Palau. of levels. This process has allowed a lot of communities and
At the handing over ceremony, University of Göttingen a lot of governments to talk to each other. It has a brought a
President, Professor Metin Tolan was quoted by Palau’s Island lot of communities together, even museums. Museums that
Times as acknowledging the “dark chapter” in scientific never used to talk to each other before, repatriation has now
history. “Such unethical research should never happen again,” opened the door for these museums to have a little more
Tolan said in an apology to Palau. understanding of what was the history of these collections
that they are trying to bring back home.”
The ball is rolling Vunidilo worked as Head of Archaeology at the Fiji Museum
Thousands of human remains have been stored in museums in the 1990s, excavating multiple sites across Fiji.
across Germany for more than 100 years for the purposes of She says it’s a little-known fact that most of the artefacts
scientific research. at the Fiji Museum are from a major repatriation that took
Amid the growing discussion in recent years about the place in 1980.
repatriation of human remains in Germany and Europe, “I was surprised when I did that research because most
Germany has responded by helping to execute repatriation of us when we came to work at the Museum, we thought
efforts. most of the artefacts there were collected in the 1900s. The
Vunidilo has been involved in several such repatriations Fiji Museum began in 1904 and so they collected a lot of
through a three-year project at the Georg-August University artefacts, but little did we know that in 1980, they had a big
of Göttingen from Germany since 2022, including the return repatriation from England. Most of the artefacts that we have
of ancestral remains to Hawaii and New Zealand, and was also today in Suva were brought in from England.”

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