when the Australian government rec-
ommended that repatriations be “un-
conditional.” Unlike in the U.S., where
federal laws govern the return of Native
American remains, the directive had
no legal force; nevertheless, Australian
institutions responded with arguably
more energy. A network of heritage
officers began systematically connect-
ing with Aboriginal communities all
over Australia to empty museum col-
lections. “We try to be proactive,” says
Phil Gordon, project manager for repa-
triation at Sydney’s Australian Muse-
um. “People also do contact us. They
call you up on the phone: ‘Hey! You got
any of my ancestors?’”
Mungo Man’s return was the cli-
max of this anti-colonial shift. “It’s
about righting the wrongs of the
past,” says Aboriginal heritage offi-
cer Kelly, who wrote the formal let-
ter asking for Mungo Man’s return.
Michael Pickering in Canberra was
one of many older white Australian
museum workers who have seen
a complete reversal of attitudes in
their lifetimes. “If you’d asked me at
age 22,” he admitted, “I would have
said it was a crime against science.
But now I’m older and wiser. Science
is not a bad thing. But society bene-
fits from other forms of knowledge as
well. We learn so much more from re-
patriation than letting bones gather
dust in storage.”
All these emotions came together
in November 2017 as the hand-carved
casket was laid out at Lake Mungo and
covered with leaves. As the
smoking ceremony began,
recalls Jason Kelly, a willy
willy (dust devil) swept from
the desert and across the cas-
ket. “It was the spirit of Mungo Man coming home,” he
said. “It felt like a beginning, not an end. It was the be-
ginning of the healing, not just for us, but for Australia.”
TODAY, MUNGO MAN, whose bones were re-
turned to the Aboriginals, lies in an interim “secret lo-
cation” awaiting reburial, which will probably occur
sometime next year. When I went to the park visitor’s
center, a ranger pointed to a door marked “Staff En-
trance Only.” “He’s down the back,” he confided. “But
don’t worry, mate, he’s safe. He’s in a bank vault.”
When he started showing visitors on a map the spot
where the bones were found by Jim Bowler, the rang-
er next to him rolled his eyes and muttered, “You’re
not supposed to tell people that!”
The human presence may have elements of an
Aussie sitcom, but the landscape is among the eeriest
in the outback. At dusk, I climbed the Walls of China,
crossing the rippling Sahara-like dunes and skirt-
ing the ribs of a wombat and shards of calcified tree
trunk among the craggy spires. Although only 130
feet high, the dunes tower over the flat desert. Peer-“MUNGO MAN AND MUNGO LADY, YOU DIDN’T FIND THEM.THEY FOUND YOU!” THEY HAD MESSAGES TO DELIVER.