Indian tribes visit UK museum to bring home ancestors' remains

By Catarina Demony and Marissa Davison

OXFORD, England (Reuters) -Tribes from the Indian state of Nagaland have held talks at a museum in Britain to secure the return of ancestral remains taken during the colonial era and put on display for decades. 

Skulls and other body parts were often brought from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to Britain and to other former colonial powers, as "trophies", to be traded, displayed or studied.

There are growing calls worldwide for such remains, as well as stolen art, to be returned to their communities as part of a centuries-old movement demanding reparations for colonialism and slavery.

Just last month, skulls of 19 African Americans were returned to New Orleans from Germany to where they were sent for examination by phrenology - the now discredited belief that the shape and size of a head shows mental ability and character, especially when applied to different ethnic groups.

Historians say some of the remains were taken by colonial officers from burial sites and battlefields in Nagaland, where for centuries headhunting was common practice. Others were looted in acts of violence.

The Pitt Rivers Museum, which displays collections from Oxford University, holds the world's largest Naga collection, including thousands of artefacts, 41 human remains, primarily skulls, and 178 objects that contain or may contain human hair.

It removed all remains from public display in 2020, including ancestors of Dolly Kikon, an anthropologist from Nagaland's Lotha-Naga tribe, who teaches at the University of California and who travelled to Oxford last week. 

"For the first time, there is a Naga delegation (at the museum) to connect and to reclaim our history, our culture and our belongings," Kikon, 49, told Reuters.    

Museum director Laura Van Broekhoven said the timing of the return of the remains was still uncertain due to the bureaucracy involved. The museum is also in talks with other groups to facilitate more items being returned.

The 23 Naga representatives, including elders of several tribes, repeated calls by British lawmakers and campaigners for the government to legislate to protect ancestral remains.   

Some European countries, such as the Netherlands, have national policies for the repatriation of human remains.

Opponents of reparations argue that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for their past. Advocates say action is needed to address the legacies, such as systemic and structural racism. 

"One way to confront the colonial legacy is for indigenous people to be able to tell our own stories," Kikon said.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Marissa Davison; Editing by Kate Holton and Alison Williams)