<
https://theconversation.com/san-and-khoe-skeletons-how-a-south-african-university-sought-to-restore-dignity-and-redress-the-past-207551>
"It has been nearly 100 years since the skeletonised remains of nine people
were removed from their graves on a farm near the town of Sutherland in South
Africa’s Northern Cape province. They were donated to the University of Cape
Town’s (UCT) anatomy department by Carel Gert Coetzee, who had unearthed them
and was a medical student at the university.
The remains belonged to San and Khoekhoe people, two groups indigenous to South
Africa. Their families were not consulted about the removal and donation.
This, sadly, was not unusual for the time. Anatomy departments and museums
around the world collected human skeletal remains during the colonial era and
into the first half of the 20th century. They were displayed in museums or
studied for scientific purposes, often with a racial lens depicting indigenous
people as primitive and inferior.
I am an associate professor in what is today the Division of Clinical Anatomy
and Biological Anthropology. In 2017, after encouragement by other museums and
universities in South Africa, I completed an archival record review with the
aim to identify remains that had been unethically obtained. That was when I
came across the Sutherland collection; and immediately realised that, as UCT,
we had a moral and ethical duty to return them to their community.
A public participation advisor Doreen Februarie was appointed to approach the
community. Myself and UCT’s senior leadership represented by DVC Professor
Loretta Feris thought they would merely request the return of the remains for
reburial. They did – but first, the descendent families asked the university to
study the remains with a view to learning more about their ancestors’ lives.
We recently presented those research results in a single, large, multi-authored
publication.
We traced historical records, conducted archaeological field work, analysed the
physical remains and conducted biomolecular analyses. Facial reconstructions
were completed for eight of the nine people – now known as the Sutherland Nine.
The Sutherland example may set a global precedent for a process of restitution
and restorative justice in combination with community-driven science. My hope
is that more curators and custodians of human skeletal remains elsewhere in the
world will attempt to redress some of the wrongs of the past."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
