Representatives of the Mapuche Community of San Ignacioin Neuquén, will meet with authorities of the Silver Museum to demand that the restitution of two ancestors of Toki Calfucura that make up the collections of that institution and whose return has already been approved by the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI) last year.
“In the community we await with some anxiety the arrival of those who were violently separated from their families. We want to continue advancing in the restitutions, it is a great show of respect and humanity,” Gustavo Namuncurá, captain cona (warrior) of the Mapuche Community of San Ignacio, told Télam.
The representative plans to arrive in La Plata on April 19 “Day of the American Aboriginal” to request a meeting with the authorities of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum of the National University of La Plata, and demand that a date be set for the restitution of the two ancestors to their community.
Individuals cataloged and labeled with the Nº 292 “Mariano Rosas” in 2001 have already been restored from this collection; with skulls No. 309 of Manuel Guerra, No. 317 of Gherenal, No. 333 of Indio Brujo and No. 337 of Gervacio Chipitruz returned to lonko Lorenzo Pincén in 2016.
The skulls of the “Catriel Tribe” were also restored with the Nº 136 to Nº 141 in 2017, to the lonko Domingo Catriel of the “General Community of Las Pampas Cipriano Catriel”.
In that collection there is also skull No. 241, of Toki Calfucurá, waiting for its restitution since 2001.
The anthropologist of the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI) Fernando Miguel Pepe confirmed this Monday to this agency that “from the community they are demanding that the bureaucratic times be concluded, that with the pandemic they were stretched a lot, which is very understandable”.
“Since October 17, 2019, when we carried out the restitution of the Qom Polvareda to Santa Fe from the Platense museum, another restitution could not be coordinated with this institution, that is why they are traveling from the community from Neuquén to La Plata,” he specified.
He announced that “we will surely meet with them and the president of the INAI, Magdalena Odarda, to coordinate well how to continue, although we hope that the new authorities of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum will take over and everything will be normalized,” Pepe concluded.
