Preserved bodies buried at last

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 6

Preserved bodies buried at last

NZPA-AAP Adelaide Four Aboriginals were buried on Saturday more than 50 years after they had died. Their bodies had been stored in the South Australian Museum in the mid--19205 after the then coroner and Professor of Pathology, Sir John Cleland, decided they should be preserved because he feared “fullblood natives would become extinct.”

The chemically-preserved bodies of a female in her 60s, who might have died from a brain tumour, a middle-aged man, who was a victim of pneumonia, a girl about seven, and an infant male, were found in the museum in mid-1983. When the bodies were found, the State Government appointed Mr Chris Cox to unravel the identities of the Aboriginals after a coroner’s inquiry proved inconclusive. Mr Cox discovered the

children were probably from the Point MacLeay region, and therefore it was presumed all the bodies were from the area.

However, on the eve of the funeral, members of the Kokatha people viewed the bodies and said the adults had markings consistent with those of the people of their tribe.

After 50 years the bodies were finally laid to rest, the adults at Ooldea, within the Maralinga lands in the north of the state in a traditional burial, and the children at Point MacLeay. A spokesman for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Greg Crafter, said the burials closed a sad chapter in South Australia’s Aboriginal history. “It is sad to think people thought of preserving Aboriginals like they would think of preserving animals,” he said. “But it goes to show just how far we have come.”