Disarming the Resistance: Police Collecting of Indigenous Australian Cultural Property for Museums

The history, legality and modern implications of police collecting of Indigenous Ancestral Remains and cultural property and the role of museums and governments in directing this activity. It is increasingly well known that police perpetrated violence against First Nations throughout the colonial period. But their role in supplying human remains and cultural objects to domestic and overseas museums is little understood, nor whether they exceeded or abused their powers in doing so. Revealing this history is of profound importance to First Nations seeking to know what happened to their Ancestors and cultural property, self-determine their future, and make repatriation claims. Using four known collections from the Museums Victoria, the South Australian Museum and the British Museum, argues that the current extent of police involvement in collecting is unknown, but police collections share a distinctive pattern of focusing on weapons. The article then considers police complicity for the collecting of Ancestral Remains and finally the legality of these collections and what that means for museum management today.