Naga delegation seek return of ancestral remains from UK's Pitt Rivers Museum
Kohima: Naga tribe leaders and seniors currently in the United Kingdom (UK) for talks with the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford have issued a declaration, seeking the repatriation of Naga ancestral remains that were on display at the museum until 2020.
According to the Naga delegation, the declaration, made on Friday at the Lecture Theatre of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, stated that the repatriation process is towards the healing and wholeness of the Naga people.
Over 200 human remains of Naga tribes are believed to have been taken away during the colonial period, many of them now kept at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM).
'We are grateful to our ancestors for being a testament and silently proclaiming the stories of our people. We are sorry that it has taken us several decades, but we are here now to reclaim and return you to the homelands from where you were taken. We are committed to the process of your return from museums,' the declaration said.
'As Nagas, we do so in a united voice, with mutual respect and consensus and to offer you a dignified rest, establishing a Naga monument of healing and peace for all generations, symbolising the oneness of the Nagas,' it added.
The Naga team also extended their solidarity to fellow indigenous peoples across the world who seek to undertake a similar journey of repatriation in the hope of bringing decolonisation, justice, and peace—not just for themselves, but for humanity.
The delegation has been in the UK since June 8, holding dialogues with Pitt Rivers Museum administrators to strengthen the process of repatriating Naga ancestral human remains.
The delegation is composed of leaders and seniors of different Naga tribal bodies, members of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), and the Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) team.
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Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Redressing colonial injustice: Repatriating Naga human remains from the UK
A Naga delegation, comprising senior leaders of tribal bodies from Naga territories, the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), and its Recover, Restore, and Decolonise (RRaD) team, recently concluded a week-long series of dialogues in the United Kingdom (UK) aimed at repatriating ancestral human remains from the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) at Oxford University. The focus of the visit was on repatriating Naga human remains held in the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Around 219 Naga ancestral human remains are said to be housed in PRM. The team was in the UK from June 8 to 14 holding dialogues with the administrators of the PRM to strengthen the process of repatriating Naga ancestral human remains currently with the museum. 'The Naga ancestral remains were taken away under duress during the colonial era by colonial administrators and collectors. This trip to the PRM with the Naga tribal leaders and elders is a historic journey and we are grateful to the Naga communities for trusting us with this process,' Rev. Dr. Ellen Konyak Jamir, coordinator of RRaD told HT. She said the RRaD has been involved in the process of repatriating the remains for the past five years. Over the years, it has reached out to the Naga communities, institutions, churches and various organisations but the actual journey to bring back the ancestral remains is just beginning. 'The knowledge that our ancestral remains are exhibited in museums across the world, or they are boxed up, housed in museums, and they are treated as specimens and collectibles; that has been news for us, and we have all been very shocked to know about this. So, we (the RRaD team) have tried our best as a team to go out to our community to share and talk about this information. This is a community-led initiative,' she said. On what would happen to the remains when they are brought home, Jamir said that it is for the Naga communities to decide. 'Recognising PRM's 'Committed to Change' and 'Strategic Plan' to engage with communities and to reconcile with the colonial past as a sincere paradigm shift, the FNR sees this collaboration as a significant step toward addressing colonial violence. Since November 2020, through the lens of healing and reconciliation, the FNR has been serving as a facilitator to seek the Naga people's consent, participation and support, specifically from the Naga tribe bodies,' the FNR said earlier this month. Acknowledging PRM's efforts to initiate the process, the Angami Public Organisation (APO) president Thejao Vihienuo -- who was part of the Naga delegation to the UK -- said they have embarked on the journey not only for the repatriation of the remains but also as a journey to decolonise Naga history. Vihienuo recounted how seeing the remains of the Naga ancestors was a moment mixed with grief and a sense of humiliation. 'But we take comfort in the fact that these remains of our ancestors have stood here in Pitt Rivers Museum for many years, silently proclaiming the history of the Nagas. The very manner in which these remains of our ancestors were taken away from our homeland and their exhibition manifests the history of the Naga people. We are, therefore, proud of these ancestors and are here to pay our respectful homage to them,' he said. The tribal leader also said that among the remains, there were about 41 skulls including that of women and children. He said it was appalling that in the UK where it is illegal to sell a bird's egg, ancestral human remains were being allowed to be auctioned and sold. 'Much before the Indian nation state was born, the Nagas lived in the rugged hills and mountain ranges between the Brahmaputra and Chindwin rivers, far away from the great land trade routes and ocean trade routes. That was our country where our forefathers lived in splendid isolation for many centuries. They were not aware of the outside world nor was the world aware of them until the British came. The colonial regime intruded into our homeland and found our ancestors to be primitive, exceptionally colourful and of anthropological interest,' Vihienuo said. Unfortunately, he said, with then Burma (Myanmar) and the British East India Company's signing of the Treaty of Yandabo, the Naga homeland was fragmented and divided between Burma and India. He said when the British Simon Commission visited Kohima, Naga leaders asserted that after the British left the sub-continent, Nagas were to be left as they were before the British invaded their land. 'Regretfully, this position clashed with the arrogance of the imperial power and we remain, to this day, divided and fragmented in the legacy of the colonial power,' he said. A long and complex process Meanwhile, in the UK, the Naga delegation met representatives from various British museums that hold Naga artefacts and human remains. As per a statement from the FNR on June 15, Alexandra Green, curator of the British Museum, had conveyed that a significant amount of material from Myanmar/Burma may be of importance to the Nagas, but much of the existing collection was obtained from the erstwhile province of Assam. She is said to have confirmed that a digitisation process will be over soon, and almost all the material will be accessible on its website. Mark Elliot, senior curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, informed the Naga delegate that only a small percentage of the material was on display; hence, his university was also trying to digitise the material for greater public accessibility. He told the Naga team that there were 725 objects, mainly belonging to the Angami, Ao, Konyak, and Khiamniungan communities. The head of Exhibitions and Collections at Manchester University, Georgina Young, and the lead curator of the South Asia gallery, Nusrat Ahmed told the Naga delegation that they had 12 Naga human remains, 11 of which were from the Konyak areas. The materials were donated by James P Mills, and in 1994, the Board of Manchester University decided that all the human remains were to be removed from the exhibition. 'Navjot Mangat and Heba Abd El Gawad, representatives of the Horniman Museum in London, informed the Naga audience that they had stopped using the word 'objects' and had begun to use 'belongings' to refer to the material that was forcibly taken from communities during colonial rule. They said that they have more than 400 belongings, mainly pipes and shawls, most of which were obtained as gifts from army officers stationed in the Naga homelands during colonial times. They still have two human remains that have been taken off display. They said they would like to work with the Naga community to ensure that there could be an ethical process to repatriate human remains and belongings,' the update from FNR said. Lisa Graves, the curator of the Bristol Museum, informed they had more than 200 potential Naga collections and one trophy head that had been removed from display, it added. Also Read: Why a 19th-century Naga human skull is more than just of human interest 'Dr. Laura van Broekhoven, director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, remarked that the week-long discussions with the Naga delegation had been fruitful. This marked the culmination of five years of engagement that enabled the transition from preservation care to the cultural care of human remains and other belongings,' the forum said. On June 13, the Naga delegation made a declaration during a public session held at the Lecture Theatre of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The declaration stated that the repatriation process is towards the healing of the Naga people. Over 200 human remains of Naga tribes were believed to have been taken away during the colonial period, many of them now kept at PRM. 'We are grateful to our ancestors for being a testament and silently proclaiming the stories of our people. We are sorry that it has taken us several decades, but we are here now to reclaim and return you to the homelands from where you were taken. We are committed to the process of your return from museums,' the declaration said. 'As Nagas, we do so in a united voice, with mutual respect and consensus and to offer you a dignified rest, establishing a Naga monument of healing and peace for all generations, symbolising the oneness of the Nagas,' the declaration said. The 'Naga Oxford Declaration' was later presented to PRM director Broekhoven. Also Read: Naga delegation seek return of ancestral remains from UK's Pitt Rivers Museum In October last year, an art house in the UK listed a 19th-century human skull originating from Nagaland for an auction sale, sparking a series of protests and condemnations from Nagas, scholars and experts in India and overseas, prompting the art house to withdraw the item from its catalogue. It was the FNR, which flagged the matter, making it public knowledge. The forum had written to the art house in the UK, and also alerted the chief minister Neiphiu Rio-led state government. CM Rio later wrote to the external affairs ministry to intervene and repatriate the Naga human remains. Jamir said there is a procedure for repatriation where documents are to be signed and submitted to the PRM. 'We cannot say when these will be completed. The tribal leaders have to consult their respective communities. It involves a lot of back-and-forth communication,' she said. She said during the meetings with the Oxford University, they learnt that the longest repatriation process lasted 40 years and the shortest - a year and a half. 'We really hope our process will not take after the longer duration,' Jamir said.
India Today
4 days ago
- India Today
Naga delegation urges UK museum to return ancestral remains from colonial era
Tribes from Nagaland engaged in discussions at Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum to reclaim ancestral remains taken during British colonial rule. The demand for their return comes amid increasing global calls for the restitution of stolen Indigenous remains and looted cultural artefacts to their rightful and other body parts were frequently transported from Asia, Africa, and other regions to Britain and other former colonial powers as "trophies" for trade, display, or state that some of the remains were taken by colonial officers from burial grounds and battlefields in the northeastern state, a region where headhunting was practised for centuries. Others were looted during violent incidents. Dolly Kikon, an anthropologist from Nagaland's Lotha-Naga tribe, said that the Naga delegation visited Oxford to reclaim ancestral heritage."For the first time, there is a Naga delegation to connect and to reclaim our history, our culture and our belongings," Kikon, who teaches at the University of California and travelled to Oxford last week, told to a statement issued by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, the delegation was invited by the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) between June 8 and 10 to discuss the future of the Naga ancestral remains that the PRM holds within their OF RETURN STILL UNCERTAIN: MUSEUMadvertisementHowever, 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, Reuters PRM, 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, according to a report by news agency last month, the skulls of 19 African Americans were returned to New Orleans from Germany, where they had been sent for study by phrenologists, proponents of a now discredited belief that skull shape reveals mental abilities, according to a Reuters EFFORTS ONGOING FOR FIVE YEARSSpeaking upon arrival in Oxford, Reverend Ellen Konyak Jamir, Coordinator of Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRD), and also part of the delegation, described the talks as a significant milestone in the collective Naga effort to recover their ancestral remains and confront colonial legacies through dialogue and cooperation with international institutions, according to a report in Nagaland-based English newspaper The Morung Express."We had a very, very meaningful time. It was a momentous occasion for the Nagas as a whole, and we want to thank the Naga people for the support rendered to us, and we are very proud of our tribal leaders here representing the different hohos," The Morung Express quoted Jamir as RRD team reported that the repatriation initiative has been underway for five years, involving wide-reaching engagement with Naga communities across districts, churches, schools, and civil society 23 Naga representatives, including tribal elders and community representatives, joined British lawmakers and campaigners in urging the government to create laws to protect ancestral museum removed all remains from public display in 2020, including ancestors of European countries, like the Netherlands, have national policies for the repatriation of human 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, according to the Reuters report."One way to confront the colonial legacy is for Indigenous people to be able to tell our own stories," Kikon was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Hindustan Times
5 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Indian tribes visit UK museum to bring home ancestors' remains
* Naga tribes claim back ancestral remains from UK museum * Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford holds largest collection * Demands for repatriation of remains and artefacts grow worldwide OXFORD, England, - 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 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.
