LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—ArtNews reports that the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, has repatriated 20 artifacts to the Warumungu community of Australia’s Northern Territory. The items include a kupija (adze), marttan (knife), murkutu (sheath), wartilykirri (hooked boomerang), and ngurrulumuru (fighting pick), which had been gifted to the Fowler Museum in 1965 by the Wellcome Trust in London. “It’s very important that a lot of these artifacts are coming back for Warumungu people,” said Warumungu elder Jones Jampijinpa. “A lot of those artifacts that museums have went before us, and we didn’t even see them,” he added. The repatriation ceremony was also attended by representatives of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), a government agency dedicated to investigating the contents of museums worldwide for objects important to Australia’s local cultural heritage. The Fowler Museum was one of 200 institutions contacted by AIATSIS and asked to examine their collections. To read about rock art in the Northern Territory, go to "Off the Grid: Kakadu National Park, Australia."
