1 hour ago
3
Beneath the clinical lighting of a warehouse storage room in Sydney’s west, Victor Pakomio tenderly holds up a small wooden figure called a Mo’ai Kava Kava. “I have a theory about who made this,” the sculptor, a Rapa Nui man from Easter Island, says.
“If you were to look at the most ancient Kava Kavas, they are incredibly intricate – finished perfectly,” Pakomio says. “If we remember the era of 1862 (the Peruvian slave trade in which almost half the Rapa Nui population was taken from Easter Island as slaves), they didn’t take the weakest people, the young and the old.
“They took the strongest, and generally the sculptors were the strongest. And you can see that here because these are not the intricate pieces of ancient times … the finish is poor; I have never seen a variation of sculpture like this, with hair.
“These pieces were made after they took the strong, and I believe they were carved by children.”
As the session inside the storage room comes to an end, Pakomio places his hand on every piece of wood on the table for a few seconds. Each is carved from the toromiro tree, which nearly became extinct in the 1950s before conservation revived its population.
When he is done, he turns to us and says that despite their flaws, “these pieces hold power. They were made by our contemporary ancestors. This is very important for me ... I am emotional. I feel like I am about to cry”.
Pakomio is a descendant of one of those enslaved people who made it back to Rapa Nui alive. He has just minutes to hold, touch or smell these objects.
The Australian Museum’s repatriation policy deems that international human remains and objects that were stolen during an “official” war should be repatriated.
That is why Pakomio and a crew of Rapa Nui delegates have travelled 20 hours from the Polynesian island. They are bringing home the human remains of their ancestors in the largest repatriation of its kind for the Australian Museum, which possessed them for 143 years. While none of the Rapa Nui objects have been requested for return, the museum had to turn to philanthropy for funding the repatriation of the remains that were requested back.
The museum returned 17 Tupuna – ancestors of the Rapa Nui people – which will be taken back with the delegation on Thursday. Of the remains, the history of a sample of human hair could be traced back to its removal from sacred burial sites at Rano Raraku in September 1882 during a German naval expedition.
The museum purchased it the following year when Australia and other Western nations competed over cultural specimens. Most of the remains going back are skulls.
On Tuesday, the delegates were welcomed by Darug man Uncle Chris Tobin, who led a smoking ceremony in the park next to the warehouse.
Delegation director Vaitiare Pakarati gifted him an intricately carved necklace of a bird, whose egg must be successfully balanced on a man’s head and brought back to the island through water for him to become a chief that year.
Pakarati, in her speech at the transfer ceremony of remains, gave gratitude to her ancestors, her Tupuna. “Thank you for guiding our steps to this day. Thank you for preserving our memory, even as so many generations have passed. Thank you for allowing me to be here,” she said.
“Today, we are not simply gathered to witness the return of ancestors. We are witnessing a meeting between memory and hope. For a long time, the ocean was the distance that separated our Tupuna from their home.
“That same ocean once again becomes the path leading them back to Rapa Nui … Today I understand that I did not walk alone. My Tupuna walked with me. And I know that today, they are here too. To you, our ancestors, we want to say with all our hearts: Welcome home. Rapa Nui was waiting for you.”
It’s the second time 19-year-old Blanca Pakomio has come to Australia. The first was for a cultural exchange with the museum on behalf of the Rapa Nui people, but this time, returning for her ancestors, feels “very emotional”.
“I loved the smoking ceremony, for them to give us their culture and ours to them, and to learn their traditions,” she said.
Professor Johnny Tuki Huke, whose last name means father and mother, says representing his culture means not only transmitting what he’s learnt from his elders down to his children, but also to the media.
“It’s so we can keep going down our path,” the sculptor says. “So we don’t lose our way.”
“On the island, when I was a boy, it was full of the skulls of our ancestors. When more people started arriving, we began losing our skulls. I am a judicial guardian of all my ancestors’ objects; one of my mother’s lineages is a protector of all things cultural.”
When the delegation arrives on Friday with the remains, Tuki Huke says they will be met with celebration.
“On Friday, everyone will be there to receive us – with music, dance, necklaces. Then we will walk to a museum to store the remains properly,” he says.
After head of Pasifika collections and engagement Melissa Malu met members of the Rapa Nui delegation at FestPAC in Hawaii in 2024, ongoing dialogue, international consultation and careful negotiation were undertaken for the repatriation.
The museum’s chief executive and director, Kim McKay, acknowledged the institution’s colonial history and apologised for how the remains and objects had been obtained.
