The artefacts include weapons, bags, toys, clothing, canoes, tools, ceremonial items, and ancestral human remains.
Many institutions that hold these items are repatriating them to Aboriginal people. While repatriation is important, what often goes unrecognised is the crucial part that collectors played in the violent dispossession of First Nations people.
Formed in 1862, the Queensland Museum amassed a significant collection of Aboriginal artefacts over the following 60 years.
Despite countless, undocumented interactions between makers, owners, collectors and curators, many of which were no doubt benevolent, frontier violence was a crucial aspect of the museum’s collecting.
While there is no evidence of the museum being directly involved in frontier killings, the use of the police, protectors, missionaries and frontier doctors as the dominant network of collectors implicates the museum as a passive beneficiary of dispossession.
In the 1870s, police Sub-Inspector Alexander Douglas , noted for his role in violent dispersals of Aboriginal people, sent the Queensland Museum ancestral remains and burial goods. These had been stolen during punitive raids on Aboriginal people in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The following decade, Francis Lyons, a “pioneer resident of Cairns ”, offered the museum mummified remains he had stolen during a retributive attack on Aboriginal people.
The Queensland Museum: “We believe these are important stories to be told and understood, and we recognise past hurts and are actively working to address these issues”.
