German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has officially returned cultural artefacts to the Kaurna Aboriginal tribe during her visit to Australia.
The items in question are a wooden sword, a spear, a fishing net and a club, all of which were sent to Germany by two missionaries in the 19th century and were last on display in Leipzig's Grassi Museum of Ethnology.
"Each of these items holds countless stories. Stories of how the Kaurna people lived over 150 years ago," Baerbock said at the handover ceremony in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
She said she wanted to honour the Kaurna's spiritual relationship with their country.
Baerbock had planned to hand over the cultural artefacts in person last August. However, she had to cancel her trip on the way there due to breakdowns of her government aircraft.
The Grassi Museum then brought the artefacts to Australia on its own. With the ceremony in Adelaide on Friday, the handover is now officially sealed.
The proportion of Australia's Indigenous population today is around 4%. The history of the Aborigines goes back 60,000 years. Before British colonization at the end of the 18th century, there were around 700 tribes. Only 20 of their 300 languages at that time are still spoken today.
Australia is the first stop on Baerbock's week-long trip to the Indo-Pacific region. The minister first met her Australian counterpart Penny Wong in Adelaide on Friday.
Her programme also included visits to the Australian Centre for Cyber Cooperation and the Osborne shipyard, where the Bremen-based company Lürssen builds patrol boats for the Australian Navy.
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of area, but is relatively sparsely populated with around 26 million inhabitants.
It is a member of the G20 group of leading economic powers and, despite the distance, supports Ukraine with weapons in its defence against Russia.
