Indigenous Knowledge, Stories, and Culture
Bones and Museums: The Dispossession of Indigenous Culture in Colonial Victoria
Colonisation in Victoria involved not only land theft and frontier violence, but also the systematic removal of Indigenous Ancestors and cultural belongings. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, burial places were disturbed, bones and grave goods were taken, and ceremonial and everyday objects were “collected” into museums and private cabinets in Australia and overseas (Broome 2005; Mulvaney 1985). These practices—often justified as science—caused deep spiritual injury, severing relationships among Ancestors, families and Country. The fate of Truganini (1812–1876) in lutruwita/Tasmania, whose remains were displayed against her explicit wishes, has become emblematic of this wider colonial disregard (Ryan 2012).
The removal of Ancestral remains in Victoria
Grave-robbing and “racial science”
River terraces, dunes and cemeteries along the Murray (Dhungala), Barwon, Merri Creek/Yarra, Lake Bolac and Western District were repeatedly looted for skulls and bones during the 1800s (Critchett 1990; Broome 2005).
Remains were exported to British and European institutions and retained by Australian museums to support pseudoscientific hierarchies of “race” (Anderson 1989; Attwood 1996).
Museums and display
The National Museum of Victoria (now Museums Victoria) and other institutions amassed large collections of Victorian Indigenous Ancestors, sometimes exhibiting them to the public, reinforcing dehumanising narratives about a “dying race” (Mulvaney 1985; Broome 2005).
Cultural belongings taken as “curiosities”
Shields, boomerangs, clubs, stone tools, cloaks and ceremonial objects were seized or purchased under coercive conditions and detached from their custodians (Mulvaney 1985).
These things were—and are—lawful belongings tied to story, totem and Country; their removal disrupted teaching, ceremony and identity (Attwood 1996; Museums Victoria 2023).
Victorian sites most affected (examples)
Budj Bim / Lake Condah (Gunditjmara Country): burials and cultural materials removed as collectors targeted both eel-farming landscapes and burial places (Critchett 1990; Broome 2005).
Barwon River and Bellarine (Wadawurrung Country): riverbank burials disturbed and sent to museums in Australia and Europe (Clark & Heydon 2002; Broome 2005).
Merri Creek and lower Birrarung/Yarra (Wurundjeri Country): medical men and amateur anthropologists removed remains in the mid-nineteenth century (Mulvaney 1985; Attwood 1996).
Kow Swamp & Lake Bolac / Western District: collections built from disturbed burial mounds and dunes (Broome 2005).
Truganini: a symbol of refusal and return
Truganini, a Palawa woman of the Nuenonne, asked that her body be cremated. Instead, her remains were exhumed by the Royal Society of Tasmania, later displayed, and not cremated until 1976—a century after her death (Ryan 2012).
In an act of cultural honour, Aunty Mary Clarke later scattered Truganini’s ashes into the D’Entrecasteaux Channel (Pritchard 2020). Her story parallels Victorian experiences and remains a touchstone for repatriation ethics.
Impacts on Victorian Indigenous communities
Spiritual trauma: Ancestors cannot rest until returned to Country; families carry intergenerational grief (Anderson 1989; Broome 2005).
Interrupted knowledge: removal of sacred/ceremonial belongings obstructed teaching, initiation and language transmission.
Extraction without benefit: institutions built prestige and collections while communities endured dispossession and poverty (Attwood 1996).
Truth-telling, repatriation and legal change
Repatriation movements
From the 1980s, Victorian communities worked with Museums Victoria and overseas institutions to bring Ancestors home. Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri have all coordinated community-led reburials on Country (Museums Victoria 2023; Anderson 1989).
The national Return of Cultural Heritage initiatives led by AIATSIS have supported the return of Ancestral remains and secret/sacred material from abroad (AIATSIS 2018).
Law and cultural authority
The Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 (Vic) and subsequent amendments recognise Ancestral Remains as protected heritage, with Registered Aboriginal Parties holding key decision-making powers (Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council 2022).
Museums now operate community-controlled repatriation programs, with storage, research and ceremony led by Traditional Owners (Museums Victoria 2023).
Case notes (Victoria)
Gunditjmara (Budj Bim): ongoing return and reburial of Ancestors alongside world-recognised cultural landscape management (Broome 2005; Museums Victoria 2023).
Yorta Yorta (Dhungala/Murray): sustained campaigns for the return of Ancestors from Melbourne and overseas collections enable ceremony and reconnection to river Country (Anderson 1989; Museums Victoria 2023).
Wadawurrung & Wurundjeri: returns from Barwon, Merri Creek and Birrarung sites continue, with reburials conducted privately according to cultural law (Clark & Heydon 2002; Museums Victoria 2023).
Conclusion
The nineteenth-century trade in bones and “curiosities” was not neutral collecting: it was the theft of Ancestors and living culture. Truth-telling and repatriation—led by Victorian Indigenous communities—are restoring dignity to Ancestors and returning cultural authority to where it has always belonged: with the people and the Country. The task remains ongoing, and it is everybody’s responsibility to respect cultural authority, support returns and protect burial places forever.
References
AIATSIS (2018) Return of Cultural Heritage. Canberra: AIATSIS.
Anderson, C. (1989) ‘The Politics of Repatriation: The Return of Indigenous Remains in Australia’, Oceania, 60(2).
Attwood, B. (1996) In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Broome, R. (2005) Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I. & Heydon, T. (2002) Dictionary of Aboriginal Placenames of Victoria. Melbourne: VACL.
Critchett, J. (1990) A Distant Field of Murder: Western District Frontiers, 1834–1848. Melbourne: MUP.
Museums Victoria (2023) Repatriation and Ancestral Remains Program. Melbourne: Museums Victoria.
Mulvaney, D.J. (1985) Encounters in Place: Outsiders and Aboriginal Australians, 1606–1985. St Lucia: UQP.
Pritchard, J. (2020) Untold Stories. Melbourne.
Ryan, L. (2012) Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council (2022) Caring for Ancestral Remains and Burial Places in Victoria. Melbourne: VAHC.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter 16/09/2025
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledge the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of communities.