Ancient Aboriginal Artifacts Return Home After 180 Years

When Menang woman Shona Coyne opened storage boxes at the London Natural History Museum, she found something rare in colonial collections: her ancestors' names written in bold letters, proudly acknowledging their expertise.

Cultural artifacts from Western Australia's southern coast are finally home after 180 years in museums worldwide. The treasures now shine in the Kalyagul exhibition at the Museum of the Great Southern in Albany, sharing knowledge that nearly disappeared.

In the 1840s, commissariat officer Robert Neill did something unusual for his time. While stationed in Albany, he worked with Menang people to document local fish species through watercolor paintings. But Neill didn't claim the knowledge as his own. He wrote down the Menang names for each species and credited the people who caught them.

"Colonizers would often extract knowledge, claim it as their own, and send it off to museums worldwide," Coyne explained. "Robert Neill actually acknowledged us and acknowledged our elders."

The discovery sparked a treasure hunt across the globe. Researchers found 27 boxes of preserved fish at the National Museum of Scotland, each labeled with Menang names. They located plant samples collected by Menang women Lucy Webb and Lucy Eades at the National Herbarium of Victoria from the late 1800s.

Herbarium manager Alison Vaughan called the find groundbreaking. "It was the first and remains the only definitive evidence we have of Aboriginal people collecting in the 19th century and contributing to the collection," she said.

Menang elder Larry Blight traveled to the UK to study the collections. "We were breaking down and deciphering ancient Menang language with our knowledge and filling in blank spots for the curators," he said. The team identified plants used for medicine and bush food, sharing knowledge passed down through generations.

The Ripple Effect

The project goes beyond simply returning artifacts. Menang community members are recreating cultural items including emu feather ornaments and traditional fishing spears. They're collecting new specimens to add to museum collections, building bridges between ancient knowledge and modern science.

Coyne returned to the exact site where her ancestor collected plants over a century ago. She gathered a new sample to add to the herbarium's collection, continuing her family's contribution to science.

The exhibition's name, Kalyagul, means "always, ever, continuing" in the Menang language. The word captures the project's spirit: knowledge that survived, connections that endured, and a culture that continues thriving.

These artifacts prove Indigenous knowledge deserves recognition not just as history, but as living science that enriches us all.