This week a delegation from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is in Scotland to collect items from two universities.
On Tuesday the group took possession of a shell necklace made by an Aboriginal woman in the 1800s.
The necklace was donated to the University of Glasgow by Mrs Margaret Miller of Launceston on a visit to Scotland in 1877, with the first request to have it returned to Tasmania coming 30 years ago.
On Friday the TAC will be at the University of Aberdeen to receive the remains of a young man who was decapitated near the Shannon River on the island in the 1820s or 1830s.
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It's believed that the man may have been killed by bounty hunters, with colonisers offering monetary rewards for the capture of native people.
His remains have been at the University of Aberdeen since 1852, when it purchased the collection of natural history professor William MacGillivray.
It is unlikely that the identity of the man will ever be known beyond that of his tribal group. The ‘Big River’ tribe to which he belonged is one of the many original tribes entirely wiped out and for which there are no surviving direct descendants.
After acquisition by the University, the skull was kept as part of the Comparative Anatomy collection, before being transferred to the Human Culture collection in the early 2000s. It was used in medical education in the 19th and early 20th centuries but the collection is no longer used for teaching and there is no current or intended research associated with it.
The remains will be taken back to Tasmania where they will be laid to rest in a traditional ceremony conducted by Aboriginal people.
The TAC will receive the remains on Friday, March 21, before returning them to Tasmania "to return him to his country, his people and his spirit laid to rest at last".
Is it right that such things should be returned to the former colonies? Have your say in our poll below.
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