Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum returns 39 Naga ancestral remains to a Naga delegation

The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford on Monday, 9 November, returned the remains of 39 people taken during British colonial rule in India to members of the Naga community, per AFP reports carried by India Today and Dawn. This piece is as of the evening of 10 November.

The handover

The ceremony came at the end of a process begun in 2020, with the Nagaland-based Forum for Naga Reconciliation facilitating, according to The New Indian Express and Mokokchung Times. The Transfer of Title Form was signed by Laura Van Broekhoven for the museum and by Rev. Dr Wati Aier for the forum, and attested by Visier Sanyü for the forum and Thejao Vihienuo for the Naga Tribe Hoho (Mokokchung Times). Almost 30 members of the community travelled to Britain for the ceremony, India Today reports, citing AFP. Van Broekhoven called it "a historic moment that will be part of stories told to next generations", and said the remains were already on their way to Heathrow airport (Dawn). Oxford vice-chancellor Irene Tracey called the event "historic between the university and the Naga people", per Mokokchung Times.

What was returned

The New Indian Express says all 39 remains are skulls, believed to have been taken between 1910 and 1940, and that the museum displayed more than 6,500 Naga artefacts (The New Indian Express). AFP's account says the museum is giving back "ancestral human remains", mainly skulls, and holds more than 6,000 objects representing Naga culture, the largest such collection in the world (Dawn). The outlets' wording differs on whether all the remains are skulls. The accounts give different descriptions of how the remains reached Oxford. Mokokchung Times says they entered the collection through donations by collectors after the museum was founded in 1884. AFP's account says most were collected by two colonial administrators who were also anthropologists, and quotes the museum's website saying such items were "frequently confiscated during punitive military expeditions" (Dawn). Vihienuo told The New Indian Express that the British took the remains possibly by dubious means.

Context and what comes next

AFP says the museum took human remains off display in 2020, much later than most museums; Van Broekhoven said around 2,700 remain in storage (Dawn). She said they were collected "in times that had different ethics". Tribal leaders planned to bury the remains together under a joint memorial in a park, AFP reports; Vihienuo said, "We shall put them to respectful rest" (Dawn). The New Indian Express says the remains will be laid to rest in Kohima, and reports Vihienuo as saying all Naga ancestral remains held in museums must return home with dignity (The New Indian Express).