Oxford museum returns ancestral Naga skulls to India
The University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum has returned the remains of 39 Naga people to India after decades of holding them in its collection. The remains were originally taken during British colonial rule and will now be given a respectful burial in Nagaland.
Why it matters
This handover represents a significant step in the ongoing global movement for the decolonization of museum collections and the repatriation of ancestral remains.
Image source, AFP via Getty Images Image caption, A delegation of 30 people had travelled to Oxford from India's Nagaland
The University of Oxford has returned the remains of 39 people taken from the Naga community during British colonial rule in India.
A delegation of around 30 people from Nagaland, a mountainous state in north-eastern India, attended a ceremony at Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum on Monday to mark the handover.
The remains, most of which are skulls, will be taken back to India and given what Naga tribal leaders have described as a "respectful rest". There are plans to bury them under a joint memorial in a park in Nagaland.
Museum director Laura Van Broekhoven described it as "a historic moment that will be part of stories told to next generations".
She said the remains were finally on their way home after overcoming "so much red tape everywhere".
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