# Is trading human skins and heads legal in Australia?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 27, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092 "2016-09-27T23:58:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Archinist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archinist)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/1 "2016-09-27T23:58:18Z")
I am curious?
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### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/2 "2016-09-28T01:17:40Z")
Do you need the answer fast?
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### Author:  [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/3 "2016-09-28T01:20:21Z")
Before or after death?
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/4 "2016-09-28T01:45:09Z")
I’m Australian, and I think I’d have heard about it by now if there was a human head/skin trade in my country. Why on Earth would you imagine that to be the case? I mean, I know Americans tend to let their imaginations run wild about Australia, but that’s a particularly bizarre question.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/5 "2016-09-28T01:56:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Is trading human skins and heads legal in Australia?
Yeeesss…it’s called Rugby.
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### Author:  [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/6 "2016-09-28T02:06:49Z")
Or do you mean trading skin FOR head?
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/7 "2016-09-28T02:27:19Z")
The only possible thing I think the OP might be referring to is the placing of bounties on Aboriginal heads by the British colonial governments in Australia’s past. And yes there was occurrences of theft and trade in aboriginal body parts as they were considered a curiosity and valuable in Europe. The placing of bounties on Aboriginal heads occurred during the ‘Black War’ in Tasmania 1820-1830.
> **[Black War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_War)**
>
> The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict, fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides, claimed the lives of 600 to 900 Aboriginal people and more than 200 British colonists. The near-destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians and the frequent incidence of mass killings have sparked debate among historians over whether the Black War should be defined as an act of genocide.
> The terms...
In 1868 ‘King Billy’, the last of the male full blooded Tasmanian’s died. His skull, hands and feet were taken from his body, possibly sold.
[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m\_r/rose/tasmania.html](http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rose/tasmania.html)
In 1833 a warrior named Yagan was killed near perth and his head was taken and exhibited in a museum in Liverpool. It was only returned for repatration in 1993.
> **[Yagan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagan)**
>
> Yagan (/ˈjeɪɡən/; c. 1795 – 11 July 1833) was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and Af...
I can’t easily find the last date that bounties were placed on aboriginal heads, but at the very least it occurred before 1830. So in the past, yep. Nowadays, absolutely not.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/8 "2016-09-28T02:28:28Z")
> [@Shakester](#):
>
> I’m Australian, and I think I’d have heard about it by now if there was a human head/skin trade in my country. Why on Earth would you imagine that to be the case? I mean, I know Americans tend to let their imaginations run wild about Australia, but that’s a particularly bizarre question.
I was wondering that myself … I can’t even imagine the Australian government specifically outlawing such trade …
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### Author:  [@blue\_infinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blue_infinity)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/9 "2016-09-28T03:48:02Z")
You can donate your body to medical science, but you can’t sell it.
An example from the South Australian [Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1983](https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/Transplantation%20and%20Anatomy%20Act%201983.aspx):
> [@](#):
>
> **Part 7—Prohibition of trading in tissue**
>
> …a contract or arrangement under which a person agrees, for valuable consideration…to the sale or supply of tissue from his body or from the body of another person…is void
>
> A person who enters into a contract or arrangement referred to in subsection (1) is guilty of an offence. Maximum penalty: $20 000
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### Author:  [@bluezooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluezooky)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/10 "2016-09-28T05:50:17Z")
It’s been illegal to trade in human remains since 1982 unless your a medical practitioner and even then you better have a good reason.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/11 "2016-09-28T10:19:09Z")
> [@bluezooky](#):
>
> It’s been illegal to trade in human remains since 1982 unless your a medical practitioner and even then you better have a good reason.
Halloween?
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/12 "2016-09-28T11:34:23Z")
As Coremelt said there was a substantial trade in Aboriginal skulls, usually sourced from burials, to museums and natural science collectors in Europe, which was mainly 19th century but still went up to WWII. Some of those remains are being repatriated now.
Currently the different state jurisdictions have legislation that protects the remains of Aboriginal people before white invasion with a combination of archaeology / heritage / coronial legislation. I think in all cases they are deemed to be the property of the Crown, and their care vested with traditional owners from where they came, where that can be determined. So unless it was a family heirloom, it would be illegal to be in possession of Aboriginal physical remains.
At the Federal level there is legislation controlling the export of significant cultural material, and Aboriginal physical remains will almost certainly trigger that. As I said, we’re busy bringing them home.
So Archinist, short answer is, at one time it wasn’t illegal, but now would be in almost all cirumstances.
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### Author:  [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/13 "2016-09-28T14:01:58Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#):
>
> So Archinist, short answer is, at one time it wasn’t illegal, but now would be in almost all cirumstances.
Wow.
A question I (in my unknown ignorance) assumed was nonsensical turns out to be legitimate and to have a reasonable answer.
I love this place!
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### Author:  [@Archinist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archinist)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/14 "2016-09-28T15:08:50Z")
Okay, so what about museums where genuine humans corpses and limbs are displayed? How do they get access to them? And I’m mainly talking about decorational items from long ago such as preserved limbs, heads, human skins used as clothing and whatnot.
How does the law tell the difference from a human skull and a head? Or a dry bone and a fresh meaty leg? Is there any real difference between the two?
So not really from the indigenous Australians, but perhaps from many miles across along the world? For example a finger from a generic European king from 1768. How would that work?
Also if you had a lisc centet to use a human head or flesh, would you be required to return it to the government in a certain number of weeks? Would there be inspection men coming around to inspect your work and make sure it is as described on the papers? Or would you just have free, unlimited access to the specimens?
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/15 "2016-09-28T20:31:36Z")
> [@Archinist](#):
>
> Okay, so what about museums where genuine humans corpses and limbs are displayed? How do they get access to them? And I’m mainly talking about decorational items from long ago such as preserved limbs, heads, human skins used as clothing and whatnot.
>
> How does the law tell the difference from a human skull and a head? Or a dry bone and a fresh meaty leg? Is there any real difference between the two?
>
> So not really from the indigenous Australians, but perhaps from many miles across along the world? For example a finger from a generic European king from 1768. How would that work?
>
> Also if you had a lisc centet to use a human head or flesh, would you be required to return it to the government in a certain number of weeks? Would there be inspection men coming around to inspect your work and make sure it is as described on the papers? Or would you just have free, unlimited access to the specimens?
I take it you don’t mean human anatomy and pathology museums attached to universities for medical training, which would be licensed under whatever laws relate to treatment of the dead and management of human tissue.
In Australia, apart from Australian indigenous people’s remains, there are human remains of various sorts displayed in museums. Egyptian mummies are the most obvious, and most came in the late 19th century. ‘Fresh’ [?] display items would only come from new archaeological research, and whatever the origin country allowed for export or loan under its own laws.
Items like that would be classed as antiquities. My guess is that normal laws - either criminal, coronial or public health - would still apply, but they’d all have some sort of loophole so that in exceptional circumstances they don’t apply, such as where the item is an antique and is too old or from another country.
Double standards are rife in this area, but the trend has been to increasingly treat all human remains with respect as representing real people, rather than the 90% non-western being fair game for scientific experimentation and museum novelty items for the benefit of the other 10%. There can be good scientific and educational reasons to have human remains on display, but this should be argued, not assumed to override other considerations.
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2016, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/16 "2016-09-29T04:58:14Z")
> [@gnoitall](#):
>
> Wow.
>
> A question I (in my unknown ignorance) assumed was nonsensical turns out to be legitimate and to have a reasonable answer.
Well yes, but it’s not just Australia, as mentioned many of the items were shipped back to Europe and displayed, and similar taking of various human parts for “scientific study” or to display in museums occurred pretty much everywhere during the colonial period. I’m sure you could find similar examples in British India, the Dutch East Indies, and in many African colonies (Belgian Congo anyone? ).
The Colonial period was brutal and nasty and “natives” were not really seen as human, in some cases not even legally human.
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/17 "2016-09-29T05:30:42Z")
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> The Colonial period was brutal and nasty and “natives” were not really seen as human, in some cases not even legally human.
Not to mention what happened to native Americans in the same era, or the US slave trade.
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### Author:  [@bluezooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluezooky)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/18 "2016-09-29T06:51:36Z")
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> Well yes, but it’s not just Australia, as mentioned many of the items were shipped back to Europe and displayed, and similar taking of various human parts for “scientific study” or to display in museums occurred pretty much everywhere during the colonial period. I’m sure you could find similar examples in British India, the Dutch East Indies, and in many African colonies (Belgian Congo anyone? ).
>
> The Colonial period was brutal and nasty and “natives” were not really seen as human, in some cases not even legally human.
The trade from India continued to quite recent times with the skeleton at your doctors office more than likely originating in India, thankfully both India and Australia moved to put a stop to it.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2016, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/19 "2016-09-29T10:42:24Z")
I read the OP in Dr Algernop Krieger’s voice. 😛
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2016, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trading-human-skins-and-heads-legal-in-australia/767092/20 "2016-09-29T11:22:23Z")
Back in the 80s there was a shitstorm when the University of Pittsbrgh’s Rugby team tried to intimidate their opponent. The team came onto the field dribbling and passing a human skull.
IIRC it was obtained from the medical school.
ETA: I found a cite, it was 1982! [My memory isn’t as bad as I thought.](http://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/06/11/Report-rugby-players-used-human-heads-on-field/2189392616000/)