HMM Newsletter - No. 13, 1997 ISSN 1036-3041

Indigenous Artefacts Do you have Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander material in your health and medicine collection? Redback Graphix poster for Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health and Aboriginal Health Workers of Australia (Queensland) The executive of Museums Australia has asked all Special Interest Groups to respond to its recent Indigenous Resolution. Briefly put, this resolution states that Museums Australia will adopt as a priority the need to address Indigenous issues. It is difficult to prepare a response without knowing whether any of our member museums have material relating to Indigenous people in their collections. We are therefore asking for your help. Note that we are not trying to do a thorough inventory. Nor is there any question of anyone wanting to take possession of material that is in health and medicine collections. We are simply trying to get an idea of what sort of relevant objects there might be in collections. We know, for example, that some member museums have Aboriginal artefacts - and these are not necessarily traditional artefacts. For example some museums have collected posters produced in recent years especially for Indigenous people. These posters have public health messages relating to, for example, healthy eating, drug and alcohol abuse, and HIV-AIDS. Another museum has a traditional-style wooden artefact in the shape of the Aesculapian snake. It was made as a presentation piece for a doctor who worked with an Aboriginal community. We believe that some of our museums probably contain photographs (of Aboriginal staff students or patients, for example) or archives relating to events or programs (such as Aboriginal training programs or Aboriginal Health Services). Please contact the editor of this newsletter if you have other suggestions.