ABSTRACT
This chapter considers two repatriation ‘moments’ – the return of Aboriginal Ancestral Remains from two museums in the UK: the Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester in 2003 and Brighton Museum in 2009. Both institutions held Ngarrindjeri Old People, as well as the remains of people from other Australian Aboriginal communities. The chapter considers these events by drawing on conversations between two people closely involved: Major Sumner, an elder of the Ngarrindjeri nation of South Australia, and Tristram Besterman, then director of Manchester Museum. The chapter contributes to a growing body of work that provides personal reflections on involvement in repatriation, and seeks to offer insights in to the friendships often forged because of them. In doing so, it all seeks to consider a little discussed (even taboo) aspect of repatriation in scholarship: the presence and significance of emotion in repatriation events.
