A second group of Kaurna Aboriginal ancestral remains, held by the South Australian Museum, have been put to rest at a memorial park in Adelaide's north.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Following a ceremony in December, Tuesday's second reburying at the Wangayarta ground has been hailed as globally significant.
Elder Moogy Sumner said it was another chapter for the Kaurna people "in doing the right thing with our ancestors".
"If you rebury our ancestors into the place where they came from, someone is going to come and dig them up again because they want to put something else there - another building, another railway track, another road," he said.
"But at Wangayarta, no one is going to go there and disturb them old people, they're here to rest now."
The Wangayarta burial ground was created specifically to repatriate Kaurna ancestral remains from museums and universities.
Tuesday's event involved remains from three western suburbs in Adelaide.
The South Australian Museum is the custodian of approximately 4500 Aboriginal ancestral remains and is actively working with Aboriginal communities all over Australia to return them to country in community-led, respectful ways.
The SA government provided $300,000 for the design and construction of the Kaurna Wangayarta Memorial Park, with Adelaide Cemeteries dedicating two hectares for Kaurna reburials.
Support for Kaurna-led archival research was provided by the University of Adelaide and the federal government, which also backed the reburial process.
Australian Associated Press
