Ministers Mark Germany’s Return of Indigenous Australian Artefacts

Four significant cultural heritage items sent to Germany in 1840 by two Lutheran missionaries have been handed back to the Kaurna people in South Australia by a German museum. The 180-year-old-plus items, a kathawirri (sword), tantanaku (club or bark peeler), wirnta (spear), and wikatyi (net) were officially returned during a ceremony at Adelaide’s Pirltawardli (Possum Park)—the location of the original exchange between Kaurna people and German missionaries. The Kaurna people and representatives from the Grassi Museum in Leipzig have been discussing the return since 2019, after an application by senior Kaurna man Michael Kumatpi O’Brien, on behalf of the Kaurna community....