Song and dance

Yahoo News reports that a representative of Australia's Aborigines was in London yesterday seeking the return of the remains of more than 450 Aborigines acquired by the British Museum in the nineteenth century.

Unwilling to deal personally with British bureaucracy, Major Sumner appeared on the steps of the Natural History Museum and summoned his ancestors to enter the building and persuade the museum’s management to return the remains.

Sumner, wearing a head-dress of shells and feathers, a scarlet loincloth and daubed in the earthy red and white of his southern Australian clan, lit a pile of leaves and danced around it calling to the four points of the compass.

"I am summoning the ancestors to go into the building and change the minds of the people inside so they will give back our dead," he told Reuters on Thursday.

The museum has consistently refused to return the collection.

Sumner, and fellow Aborigine Bob Weatherall from the Foundation for Aboriginal and Island Research Action, are clearly unhappy with the museum’s stance. Weatherall commented that it was wrong that in the twenty-first century the museum was still using its collection of human remains for research.

Weatherall’s criticism has struck a chord, and many are now calling for the museum to update its image, abandon its commitment to scientific research and “get with the loincloth and feathers thing.”

The ancestors of the museum’s management were yesterday unavailable for comment.