AP News, May 11th, 2007
A London museum handed over teeth, skulls and skeletons looted from Tasmania in the 19th century to Aboriginal rights campaigners on Friday after a 20-year struggle for their return.
Remains of 17 Aborigines have been held by the Natural History Museum since the 1940s but will be flown Saturday to Tasmania, an island 125 miles south of mainland Australia.
The fragments, the oldest of which dates back to 1839, will be buried in a ceremony next month, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center said.
"We can return them home to rest their tormented souls," said Greg Brown, of the center _ which first demanded the return of the remains in 1985.
The museum agreed last year to return the fragments, but said they had the right to continue research _ taking photographs, extracting DNA and shaving off slivers from teeth and skulls.
That decision touched off a bitter dispute and the center sued the British museum, arguing the work would defile the remains.
Aborigines believe the deceased cannot freely enter the spirit world until their remains are returned to their homeland, and that tampering can cause spiritual harm.
Museum officials argued the relics are of special scientific value because they date back to a time when the island had genetically unique inhabitants.
Under an agreement, some genetic material previously extracted from the bones will be held in Tasmania and may be used in future joint tests.
The Natural History Museum holds Britain's national collection of human remains: about 19,500 specimens, from complete skeletons to a single finger bone. The collection, with samples from around the world covering a time span of 500,000 years, was legally acquired from other museums and collections, officials said.
Since 2004 _ when a law passed that allowed British museums to return human remains less than 1,000 years old _ Australia had requested the return of 450 sets of body parts. Two American Indian tribes have also submitted demands.
A museum spokeswoman could not confirm which American Indian tribes had made the requests.
