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I've been to a couple of repatriation ceremonies in the past few years.

I saw the return of Toi Moko - human skulls gathered by collectors in the 19th century - to Maori people and also to Mer Islanders.

Aside from a traditional song or perhaps a gift to the museum returning the artefact, it's a fairly standard procedure with a few forms to be filled in and perhaps a speech or two.

Representatives often spend some time in private with what is, they claim, the last human remains of their ancestors.

But in the case of this week's claim by the Southern Australian Ngarrindjeri people, it was the closest I've ever come to an Aboriginal funeral.

We were ushered through the bustling Museum of Scotland to the strangely hushed rooftop.

They say it's available for weddings but it could have been designed for this funeral, as we all gathered round in a circle.

In the centre, Ngarrindjeri elder Major Sumner, in full body paint and ceremonial head-dress, a long bone piercing his nose.

At his feet in a box, covered by an Australian flag, lie the six Aboriginal skulls, which were brought to the museum in the late 19th century.

He's in no doubt these are ancestors.

"These are ordinary people. They walked around, they laughed, they had families and they died. In Aboriginal culture, we believe that if any the body isn't buried intact, the spirit can't be at rest. So these spirits have been waiting around a long long time. And today we've come to take them home."

His traditional song he says, is asking the spirits if they want to come home - then he clicks two boomerangs together as he chants and moves round the circle.

The other Aboriginal representatives, in smart business suits turn with him as he looks east, west, north and south.

Then he walks round the group with a bowl of smouldering eucalyptus leaves - the familiar scent of his homeland.

We each waft the steam into our faces and wish the spirits well on their way.

Then it's all over and the Ngarrindjeri leave - Mr Sumner first washing off the paint and changing back into his own clothes.

The human remains will be collected later and flown home with them later in the week.

It's one of four visits to institutions in Edinburgh, Dublin and London they'll make this week - and they say they'll make many more journeys until they can be sure they've brought home all the human remains of their ancestors from museum collections across the world.

But while museum curators are sympathetic to their campaign, they say it has to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

Since the 1980s, repatriation requests have increased dramatically, helped along enormously by the weight of Australian, New Zealand and US governments (perhaps trying to make amends for their own attitude towards indigenous peoples in the past).

Cases like this are hard to argue against - the Museum of Scotland have never shown these skulls and they never would.

And although they give insight into another era in which colonial explorers thought it appropriate to barter for human remains - and bring them home as macabre souvenirs - their actual presence in the vaults of a museum isn't necessary.

If anything, these repatriations are opening up new cultural and educational links between Scotland and indigenous people across the globe which give far greater insight than the original acquisitions ever could.

But there are many legitimate reasons for museums to house human remains - whether that's fossilised remains or Egyptian mummies.

Or modern art which uses human blood or hair - Marc Quinn's Blood Head, which used his own blood - or more controversially Gunther Von Hagen's skinned corpses.

Then there's Scotland's world renowned anatomy museums - the Hunterian in Glasgow and the Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh - which tap into a tradition dating back to the Enlightenment.

That's why many non-national museums believe they need to have their own guidelines, separate from the Human Tissue (Scotland) Bill which came into force in 2006.

Without the expertise or clout of national museums, they're anxious about making the right decisions in the face of an increased number of repatriation claims.

And faced with the emotional issues and the weight of whole governments, it's easy to see why they're worried.

The new guidelines are expected to be completed by the autumn, at which point the Museum of Scotland will receive its next delegation - this time, a Maori group who'll take home four skulls and two mandibles (lower jawbones).

As for the Aboriginal remains, there'll be a final service for them when they arrive back in Southern Australia next week, after which they'll be buried on home soil.