WARNING: The following may disturb some readers and discusses First Nations people who have died.

A Ngarrindjeri man's remains which were once traded for a prehistoric tiger skull will finally make their way home this weekend, as one of 14 First Nations ancestors returned to Australia from United States museums.

Uncle Major "Moogy" Sumner AM, who travelled from South Australia to the US this week, was shocked to learn the way his ancestor's remains were treated in the 1950s.

"He was traded to the museum over in Los Angeles here for a skull of a sabre-tooth tiger.

"This is like them trading an animal for an animal," the Ngarrindjeri Elder told the ABC.

Origins not recorded

On Friday, the remains of First Nations adults and children held by Californian institutions since the early 1900s were handed back at a ceremony held at the Fowler Museum.

Who these people were, their names and their stories, are unknown.

Little was recorded about the origins of the other 12. For some, there's some state provenance, but for others all that is known is that they were from Australia.

"Twelve other remains just coming with us, I don't know the identity of them or where they come from," Uncle Moogy said.

"They don't know where they were dug up from."

Uncle Moogy held a smoking ceremony on Friday for his ancestor, as well as another ancestor from Wamba Wemba Country.

Jason Kelly, deputy chair of the Wamba Wemba Aboriginal Corporation and a representative for the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria, said the remains belong back on Country.

"The ancestor, you know, is born and comes from that part of the Country, and really critical that returns back to that part of the Country, to the mother."

Like an "Aboriginal passport", the Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wemba man said they sent a message stick made from the red gum of his Country and adorned with feathers of their totem the red-tailed black cockatoo, as well as traditional symbols, to ensure their safe journey back.

"We always talk about the term 'Rest in peace'. Bringing the ancestors back brings peace.

Victorian Labor senator Jana Stewart said in a statement that she was proud to bring ancestors home, but she looks forward to seeing the outcome of other negotiations.

"As a Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman, I know the healing that happens when you have your people back home on country."

Reckoning with institutional violence

Silvia Forni, from the Fowler Museum at UCLA, was part of the team that returned three First Nations Australian ancestors, including Uncle Moogy's Old Person.

"What we have, and many museums have, is often very little information about these international remains, especially if they were obtained with institutional exchanges," the museum director said.

"It's reckoning with the history of institutional violence, and something that we know is part of our history, the history of many Western institutions and institutions also in settler colonial nations.

"It's always somewhat sobering to reckon with one's own past, but it's something that we've been doing quite a bit as an institution, and that many institutions are doing more and more," she said.

Two ancestors will return from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and four ancestors from the Oakland Museum of California.

Alexandra Lucas oversees repatriation for the University of California, Berkeley, and was at the handover ceremony.

"These old people, they shouldn't have been removed to begin with. We're really conscious within the museums that we're holding on to people so far from where their homes are," she said.

She said the onus should be on the institutions to right the wrongs of the past.

"In museums, for quite a long time, we've taken a real sort of step back from the real human element of this.

"So part of what we're seeing here is a real global shift to respecting these as people and remembering that they are people, and they had wishes as well."

Recently the issue of repatriation was raised by Senator Lidia Thorpe, who in a protest against King Charles III during his visit to Parliament House, shouted, "Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people."

The Australian government says that over the past three decades about 1,730 First Nations ancestors — 160 from the United States — have been brought home.

Still, an unknown number remain in institutions and private collections abroad.

For Uncle Moogy, this is not the first time he's travelled abroad for repatriation, and he doesn't expect it to be the last.

"I'd like the government to organise to get the whole lot back, not get them back little bits at a time," the Ngarrindjeri elder said.