PILBARA CUSTODIANS HOPE TO BRING ARTEFACTS HOME

Kevin Guiness at the National Museums of Scotland archives. (Supplied: Kevin Guiness.)

Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people have travelled to the United Kingdom to identify artefacts, plants and seeds taken from their country in the 1800s.

Yindjibarndi artefacts in the National Museums of Scotland collection. (Supplied: Kevin Guiness.)

In November, Yindjibarndi man Kevin Guiness and Ngarluma woman Kerry Churnside visited Kew Science in London and National Museums of Scotland.

Around 1000 artefacts from their country are stored in these institutions.

Mr Guiness said the artefacts, plants and seeds were taken by collector Emile Clement in the nineteenth century and ended up in the collections of various European museums.

He said he hoped the artefacts would eventually be returned to country.

“We’d like to see them come back home, back to country, back to their own land where they belong with the people, both Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi,” he said.

Mr Guiness said he felt “emotional” to be the first Yindjibarndi person to hold the Yinjdibarndi artefacts since they were taken.

“The person who made [the artefacts] was an Yindjibarndi who made that shield and spear thrower, and [it was] taken away for that long, put in another country and locked away,” he said.

Kevin Guiness with a ‘Scottish Ngaarda-ngarli’. (Supplied: Kevin Guiness.)

Kevin Guiness and Kerry Churnside at Heathrow Airport. (Supplied: Kevin Guiness.)