Dr Harry Van Issum has spent five years working to retrieve the remains of a Woppaburra ancestor to his community on the Keppel Islands.
The remains are being held in the Natural History Museum in London and are just one example of cherished First Nations history and culture kept by institutions overseas.
Dr Van Issum, a principal fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, told the Courier Mail it is a long and arduous process to repatriate cultural artefacts, remains and items as museums can be reluctant to return them.
“You’re beholden to their rules,” said Dr Van Issum.
"We have the provenance of them, we have the record, we have the dates they were sent there, we know exactly what they are and what went and the time and the date and the documents from the Queensland Museum.
“Then when it gets to the London Natural History Museum, they talk about them doing proper research to find the provenance.
“And from our perspective, it was already done.
“We probably don’t agree with a lot of the steps, but we understand it’s just a process of encouraging them to move on without pulling a big stick out, because it doesn’t get us there any quicker.”
The respected academic made the comments as the Queensland Premier committed to following through with his predecessors promise to secure the return of items held at the British Museum in London.
Premier Steven Miles committed to the former government's $4.6 million five year plan to repatriate items to their communities.
The Queensland Museum has also confirmed they are negotiating with the British Museum to return hundreds of First Nations artefacts held in the museums storage.
However, one of the major issues in retrieving items from the Natural History Museum and British Museum in particular, is the British Museum Act 1963.
The Act forbids the museums from disposing of their holdings, except in some rare circumstances.
Although the museum insists that items, regardless of how they were acquired, are safer in the museums, it was found last year that 1,500 objects had been stolen over a period of a decade.
The museum was accused of inadequate documentation of artefacts held in storage and its director at the time, Hartwig Fischer resigned.
An independent review into the matter said the British Museum must document all items in its collections.
There are thousands, if not millions of Indigenous items and artefacts locked up in institutions all over the world.
Some, like the Manchester Museum, are willing to work with organisations such as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), who last year facilitated the return of Anindilyakwa objects to Country and community.
The return was part of AIATSIS' Return of Cultural Heritage program which is ongoing and seeks to work with institutions all over the world.
Famously, the British Museum holds the Gweagal shield which dates back to the early 1700s and is probably the oldest shield from Australia held in any collection.
The Gweagal Shield held at the British Museum. It is a powerful symbol of First Nations resistance. Source: Supplied / Supplied: British Museum
Dr Van Issum said ancestral remains being held overseas is particularly distressing.
“We believe their spirit is still there – it’s attached to those objects and it hasn’t been allowed to move on to the next place,” he said.
“So they’re upset, they’re distressed, and they need to be brought back to Country and have a proper ceremony in the way that a particular community might do it.
“Some people do smoking ceremonies, some people do water ceremonies, but based on that community, it’s usually a cleansing type of ceremony that welcomes that spirit that’s attached to those remains back to Country.”
