Warning: readers are advised that this article contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died.
After being held at the South Australian Museum for six decades, the remains of a Southern Arrernte man will finally be laid to rest on Country.
Stockman Tom Cowell died of natural causes while out droving east of Lake Eyre in 1959.
He was buried where his body was found near Kopperamanna Bore, however sometime in the 1960s his grave was disturbed by flooding and his remains uncovered.
Police officers who responded to the matter handed the remains to the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.
Raymond Finn, who shares ancestors with Cowell, is among those who will return him to his Country and carry out a burial process.
“This one here is very special to us, to our family, we’re taking him back to Noora, home, Mt Dare, Witjira National Park, that’s where we come from,” he said.
"We’re taking him back to Noora, home, Mt Dare, Witjira National Park. That’s where we come from.
"It’s a special time for Thomas, to take him home."
Museum of South Australia Aboriginal repatriation manager Anna Russo said work had been done in recent years to identify Cowell, and to learn about the latter part of his life.
"It's very unusual to be repatriating an ancestor whose name is known and also who died in 1959, so who was in such recent living memory," she said.
South Australia’s Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Kyam Maher was at the museum on Monday as the stockman’s remains were collected.
"Today he will start the journey back to near Mt Dare where he will be laid to rest," he said.
The South Australian Museum is among those which are part of the Australian government's Indigenous Repatriation Program.
The program facilitates the return of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains and sacred objects held in museums to their communities of origin.
