THE Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council says it is distressed by recent allegations that a former Mildura Rural City Council gravedigger exhumed bodies without authority.
The heritage council said it acknowledged community distress over the allegations of disrespect to ancestors at the Nichols Point and Murray Pines cemeteries.
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It said that distress was familiar to Aboriginal people and and the return of ancestors to country and the safekeeping of their traditional owners was essential to the wellbeing of Aboriginal communities.
Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council deputy chairperson Sissy Pettit Havea said with museums and collectors returning ancestral remains to their living people, their descendants could continue religious beliefs surrounding the living spirit and their resting places.
“Without resting, their spirit is unable to be free — it is captured in darkness and cannot continue to its dreaming,” she said.
“There is a cycle for everyone and everything, including the human spirit, and when the cycle is incomplete or interfered with there are consequences.”
The council said the “significant” burial sites around Mildura were still being disturbed through non-traditional owner pursuit of leisure activities around the Murray, climate change and lack of resourcing to traditional owners to manage their sites.
