Culturally significant tools and other objects are returning to Warumungu Country in the Northern Territory from a museum in the United States.
Among the 20 objects being returned from the Fowler Museum at the University of California are a marttan (knife), murkutu (sheath), ngurrlumuru (fighting pick), kupija (adze) and wartilykirri (hooked 'number seven' boomerang).
Warumungu man Cliff Plummer Jabarula (Jupurula) told AAP he was honoured to be part of the repatriation.
"It's really good that they come back home because they belong to our people," he said.
"My great-grandfather would have witnessed these things being sent away so I'm pretty pleased that I'm a part of bringing them home."
William Ah Kit Jakamarra said stories from older Warumungu people suggest the objects had been taken from country when work began on the Stuart Highway, which runs through the Northern Territory.
Mr Ah Kit Jakamarra and Mr Plummer Jabarula travelled to the US as representatives of the Warumungu community for the formal handover of the artefacts.
"Hearing the stories about how it happened, it's a great honour for me to go and get the material they're talking about," Mr Ah Kit Jakamarra said.
The objects will be temporarily held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra, but once returned to Warumungu Country, they will be on display at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Arts and Culture Centre in Tennant Creek.
Mr Plummer Jabarula said having them on display means they could be a valuable teaching tool.
"We could write something about, what year and how long these things were overseas for, who took them over there, so people could get an understanding that non-Indigenous people came there and collected a lot of stuff from our area to showcase overseas," he said.
The objects are being repatriated through the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage program.
The institute's interim chief executive Leonard Hill said the program has helped return culturally significant objects to more than a dozen communities.
"Every return is different and every return is greatly important to the mob whose material is being returned home," he said.
"Through programs like the return of cultural heritage program we can work with overseas collecting institutions and we can work with First Nations communities in Australia to make sure that material that was, not always but often, taken through questionable means, can be returned."
