Etched in Bone
A film in progress by Martin Thomas
Shooting on Injalak hill, Gunbalanya (2010)
From Martin Thomas:
It was both a privilege and a pleasure to be able to present some excerpts from Etched in Bone at our last meeting. Because the discussion time at Giessen was limited, I’m providing a link to some clips from the film and a brief overview of the project. Please feel free to share comments or reflections if you feel inclined. We will add further clips as the project progresses.
A Note on Access
The material I am posting to this website is presently restricted to IGHERT participants. The film, photos and commentary should not be shown to or used by anyone outside the IGHERT group. This is necessitated by the cultural sensitivity of some footage, by copyright restrictions on the archival film, and by the need to protect intellectual property – my own and that of the people who appear in the film. Note that these pages contain images of people who have passed away.
Project Overview
[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m14!1m8!1m3!1d15591.294798936698!2d133.0576521!3d-12.3276504!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x2cb7d0dfd31e55ef%3A0xa5d4b4fa7c4d290b!2sOenpelli%2C+Gunbalanya+Territoire+du+Nord+0822%2C+Australie!5e0!3m2!1sfr!2sfr!4v1476635716434&w=350&h=225 align=”right”]Etched in Bone tells the story of a cache of skeletal remains that were stolen from mortuary caves in the north Australian Aboriginal reserve of Arnhem Land. They were taken in 1948 when the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land visited the region. This expedition was a joint initiative of the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution and the Australian government.
The deputy leader of the expedition was Frank M. Setzler, Head Curator of Anthropology in the Smithsonian’s US National Museum (as the National Museum of Natural History was then known). Setzler, already a veteran at the Smithsonian, had been close professionally to Aleš Hrdlička (1869-1943), a notorious collector of human bones and organs, sometimes referred to as the ‘father’ of physical anthropology in the United States. A committed racial theorist, Hrdlička was the long-serving Curator of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian. Continuing that tradition, Setzler collected a great many human remains during his visit to Australia, as he had done previously in his own country. He also collected artwork and artefacts, conducted archaeological digs, and made hand and face casts of living people whom he encountered. Nearly all the human bones and about one third of the other collections amassed by the expedition were exported to Washington DC where they entered the museum collections of the Smithsonian Institution.
Photograph by Frank M. Setzler showing men from Groote Eylandt holding casts of their own faces (1948). Collection of National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Set in Arnhem Land settlement of Gunbalanya
Dr Gumbula (right) leads a ceremony marking the departure of boxes of human remains from the Smithsonian Institution. The other Arnhem Land representatives are Victor Gumurdul (to the left of Gumbula) and Thomas Amagula (in red shirt) (2010). Photograph by Adis Hondo.
The bulk of Etched in Bone is set in the Arnhem Land settlement of Gunbalanya, which was known to the expedition as Oenpelli Mission (the settlement was then under the management of the Anglican Church). The last base for the 1948 expedition, it was in close proximity to burial caves where customary interments had been taking place until the early twentieth century. The film is mostly concerned with the repatriation of the bones ‘discovered’ by Setzler around Gunbalanya. The repatriation was seeded by an archaeology student, Sally May, who in the late 1990s advised members of the Gunbalanya community that the Smithsonian held human bones from their locality. This was reported to the Australian government which has an office exclusively dedicated to facilitating the return of human remains of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They lobbied for the return of the bones on behalf of the Aboriginal communities. Finally – and reluctantly – the Smithsonian gave consent.
The Smithsonian Institution first released two thirds of the bones in 2009, saying that the remainder would be retained in its collection. After further complaints from Gunbalanya and other parts of Arnhem Land, the remaining bones were released in 2010. The film documents this second repatriation, which I attended. Accompanied by the late Adis Hondo, who was the chief photographer on the project, I was able to follow and document the journey of three Aboriginal men who were delegated by their communities to go to Washington and bring home their ancestors.
According to Jacob Nayinggul
The remainder of the film is set in northern Australia, where the subject of bone taking is explored from the point of view of Jacob Nayinggul (often referred to by his kinship name, ‘Wamud’), a senior elder of the Gunbalanya community. The question that constantly resurfaced in a series of filmed discussions, dating from 2010 until Jacob’s death in early 2012, concerned the fate of the spirits of the people collected by the anthropologist. Had they been wrenched from their country and transplanted to a foreign land, the United States? As I explained in an essay published in 2013, the bone theft and the repatriation presented for Bininj (as the people of this region call themselves) a broad suite of legal, ethical, political and religious difficulties:
the actions of Frank Setzler were a brazen theft… But to confine the transgression to the act of theft is to understate the gravity and complexity of the problem. Theft is a crime against property, whereas this was a crime against people. The removal of bones is closer to kidnap from this point of view. Taking the bones presented Bininj and Aboriginal people from other parts of Arnhem Land with the terrifying possibility that spirits had been wrenched from their country and taken abroad… Now the Bininj must deal with the bewilderment and possible anger of the spirits upon their return to Australia.
The problem of how to welcome and appease the spirits posed significant problems. Gunbalanya people were scared that their ancestors might be angry, vengeful or disorientated as a result of their displacement. Nor were there any cultural precedents for how to deal ritually with this situation. For the Bininj, messing around with dead people is something you just don’t do! Taking them from the territory of their ancestors is simply unthinkable.
The film shows how, under Jacob Nayinggul’s direction, a hybrid ceremony, involving traditional ritual and Christian funeral rites, was devised. In fact the filmmaking itself quickly became drawn into the repatriation narrative. The interviews provided Jacob with an opportunity to voice dilemmas that were going through his mind. On occasions, he took over the direction, telling Adis to go and film a particular location or subject. He was ever mindful that other bones had been stolen from the region; that the film we were making might offer a model for responding to future repatriations.
What does repatriation mean?
The film is a journey that is intended to deepen understandings of what repatriation means. Put concisely, is to do with restoration: the transition of the bones from museum objects to human subjects. We see how they were removed from their museum boxes and wrappings. Under Jacob’s direction, they were tenderly painted with red ochre, obscuring the museum accession numbers that Setzler had etched into each and every ‘specimen’. Finally, the bones were wrapped in sheets of paperbark and tied into bundles. All the while, Jacob spoke to the spirits in local languages that are for the most part at the threshold of extinction. A large funeral ceremony took place the following day. The last time I met with Jacob was about a month after the funeral. I recorded him as he watched rushes of the earlier footage, and he continued to reflect on his beliefs concerning the afterlife.
This view of the funeral at Gunbalanya shows the trenches dug to receive the repatriated bones (2011). Jacob Nayinggul is sitting in his wheelchair and I am standing beside him. Photograph by Glenn Campbell.
Unintentionally, the film documents the physical demise of Jacob. He was suffering from cancer and other illnesses throughout the period we were shooting. It becomes apparent that in certain ways he was preparing for his own death as he welcomed the spirits back to their ancestral territory. Of course, the film is a political intervention, as well as being a work of observation and historical interpretation. But as I think I’ve intimated, it has a personal dimension. It documents the friendship that developed between Jacob and me. Seeing the footage, I am reminded of my initial expectation that I would play the role of sympathetic observer and filmmaker. How utterly it had to be abandoned! Although an outsider, I became enmeshed in the repatriation event to an extent that I would never have anticipated. I found myself heaving around boxes of bones in preparation for wrapping and, as mediator of the story to the wider world, I was asked to speak at the funeral. The challenge for the edit is to juxtapose, explain and synthesise the personal and the political. Both are embedded in the story.
View Video Clips
Clips are only available for view by IGHERT participants. You will need a password to view these clips.
Production team
- Martin Thomas: Director/Co-Producer
- Béatrice Bijon: Co-Producer/Production Manager
- Hand in Hand Productions (Adis Hondo and Suze Houghton): Cinema-photography and sound recording
- Associated Producers (James Lane and Scott Wombey): Editing, cinema-photography and post-production
- Thomas Danielczik: Cinema-photography (Boston shoot)
- Gus Berger: Cinema-photography (Maningrida shoot)
- Ronin Films: Distributor
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