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Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- General
- 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
- General
- 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.
Business Wire
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Geospace Technologies Corporation Receives Permanent Reservoir Monitoring Contract From Petrobras
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Geospace Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: GEOS) ('the 'Company") today announces a Permanent Reservoir Monitoring contract award for Mero Fields 3 and 4 from Petrobras, operator of the Mero field Consortium. The contract encompasses the supply and installation of nearly 500km of the OptoSeis® Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) system covering 140 sq km of seabed area of Mero, located deep offshore in the Santos Basin, 180 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The contract encompasses the supply and installation of nearly 500km of the OptoSeis® Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) system covering 140 sq km of seabed area of Mero, located deep offshore in the Santos Basin. Share This multi-year contract, which begins in June 2025, includes the engineering, procurement, construction, and operation of the OptoSeis® PRM system. The contract also includes installation, which is to be completed by Blue Marine Telecom, a Brazilian subsea cable company. The OptoSeis® system will be used to monitor and optimize oil production from the Mero field. The PRM system is based on the OptoSeis® technology developed by PGS and acquired by Geospace in 2018. OptoSeis® technology was previously deployed as the world's first deepwater PRM system on the Jubarte field more than a decade ago, providing excellent 4D results, a more accurate reservoir model and improved drilling decisions. OptoSeis® multicomponent sensors recover more seismic energy by leveraging their high dynamic range, wide bandwidth, superior fidelity, low crosstalk, and pressure balanced design. With a system noise floor well below offshore environments, the OptoSeis® system provides superior data quality as compared to other technologies. The operations of the unitized Mero field are conducted by the Consortium operated by Petrobras, in partnership with Shell Brasil, TotalEnergies, CNODC, CNOOC and Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A (PPSA), as the Brazilian Government's representative in the non-contracted area. 'We are delighted to be selected by Petrobras and their partners as the technology of choice to deploy over 490 km of our OptoSeis® PRM system in deep waters off the coast of Brazil. We look forward to our collaboration over the coming years on this most important and valuable project to maximize and improve the efficiency of reservoir management,' said Rich Kelley, CEO and President of Geospace. 'I offer tremendous congratulations to the technical teams involved in this thorough process from the earliest conversations, through the tender response all the way to contract negotiations and closure. I also want to thank all of our partners that supported us during this process. We look forward to delivering a reliable, robust and permanent solution of value to Petrobras.' About Geospace Technologies Geospace Technologies is a global technology and instrumentation manufacturer specializing in advanced sensing, IOT and highly ruggedized products, which serve smart water, energy exploration, industrial, government and commercial customers worldwide. The Company's products blend engineering expertise with advanced analytic software to optimize energy exploration, enhance national and homeland security, empower water utility and property managers, and streamline electronic printing solutions. With more than four decades of excellence, the Company's more than 450 employees across the world are dedicated to engineering and technical quality. Geospace is traded on the U.S. NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GEOS. For more information, visit
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Geospace Technologies Corporation Receives Permanent Reservoir Monitoring Contract From Petrobras
HOUSTON, June 16, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Geospace Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: GEOS) ("the "Company") today announces a Permanent Reservoir Monitoring contract award for Mero Fields 3 and 4 from Petrobras, operator of the Mero field Consortium. The contract encompasses the supply and installation of nearly 500km of the OptoSeis® Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) system covering 140 sq km of seabed area of Mero, located deep offshore in the Santos Basin, 180 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This multi-year contract, which begins in June 2025, includes the engineering, procurement, construction, and operation of the OptoSeis® PRM system. The contract also includes installation, which is to be completed by Blue Marine Telecom, a Brazilian subsea cable company. The OptoSeis® system will be used to monitor and optimize oil production from the Mero field. The PRM system is based on the OptoSeis® technology developed by PGS and acquired by Geospace in 2018. OptoSeis® technology was previously deployed as the world's first deepwater PRM system on the Jubarte field more than a decade ago, providing excellent 4D results, a more accurate reservoir model and improved drilling decisions. OptoSeis® multicomponent sensors recover more seismic energy by leveraging their high dynamic range, wide bandwidth, superior fidelity, low crosstalk, and pressure balanced design. With a system noise floor well below offshore environments, the OptoSeis® system provides superior data quality as compared to other technologies. The operations of the unitized Mero field are conducted by the Consortium operated by Petrobras, in partnership with Shell Brasil, TotalEnergies, CNODC, CNOOC and Pré-Sal Petróleo S.A (PPSA), as the Brazilian Government's representative in the non-contracted area. "We are delighted to be selected by Petrobras and their partners as the technology of choice to deploy over 490 km of our OptoSeis® PRM system in deep waters off the coast of Brazil. We look forward to our collaboration over the coming years on this most important and valuable project to maximize and improve the efficiency of reservoir management," said Rich Kelley, CEO and President of Geospace. "I offer tremendous congratulations to the technical teams involved in this thorough process from the earliest conversations, through the tender response all the way to contract negotiations and closure. I also want to thank all of our partners that supported us during this process. We look forward to delivering a reliable, robust and permanent solution of value to Petrobras." About Geospace Technologies Geospace Technologies is a global technology and instrumentation manufacturer specializing in advanced sensing, IOT and highly ruggedized products, which serve smart water, energy exploration, industrial, government and commercial customers worldwide. The Company's products blend engineering expertise with advanced analytic software to optimize energy exploration, enhance national and homeland security, empower water utility and property managers, and streamline electronic printing solutions. With more than four decades of excellence, the Company's more than 450 employees across the world are dedicated to engineering and technical quality. Geospace is traded on the U.S. NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GEOS. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Media Contact: Caroline Kempf, ckempf@ 713.986.8710 Sign in to access your portfolio
Buzz Feed
6 days ago
- Buzz Feed
23 Flight Attendants Share On The Job Horror Stories
IDK about you, but I am very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY much not a fan of the being in the sky in general. So, needless to say, I have a lot of respect for people who spend most of their days working on planes, tending to entitled customers, and all around living my actual nightmare. Well, Reddit user TwistedHumorX recently asked cabin crew members to share the worst, weirdest, and "most WTF" things they've ever witnessed on the job. Y'all...I fear these stories have only validated my fears and confirmed that flight attendants are perhaps some of the strongest people in the world. So, without further ado, here are 23 shocking and occasionally disturbing stories they shared: "We found poop in the toilet sink. Sometimes it's pee sloshing around because people don't know the sink has to be drained, aside from the fact that it is a sink and not a toilet bowl. Also, some men insisted they needed a sanitary napkin, just because they saw a woman receive it from me. They thought I was giving out amenities and felt they also had a right to receive whatever the lady got. So, fine, I gave them some. The next time I passed by, they had the pads stuck to their eyes. They thought they were eyeshades." "My girlfriend is cabin crew. There are two main stories she tells. The first one is a passenger who mixed sleeping pills and alcohol, this caused the passenger to freak out and attack another passenger. The other involves a passenger who didn't have his belt over his blanket when the fasten seat belt sign was lit. He looked asleep and didn't respond to the crew when they tried to wake him, so they had to move the blanket to check. Turns out he was masturbating." "My father was a pilot and my mother was a flight attendant. I've always said my mom should write a book. In the 1960s, my mom's route was LA–NY and back (first class cabin), so it always had a famous person or two. Actors were always the worst for her. Most notably, she said she was manhandled by Robert Goulet, who then proceeded to tell the whole plane that he had sex with her (which didn't happen). After my mom asked Lucille Ball what she would like to drink, Lucille Ball replied, 'I don't talk to servants.'" "A passenger asked me for a Coke while I was actively performing CPR on someone." "I fly for a low-cost carrier in Europe. I've got loads of stories of people leaving weird or random stuff behind, but the one that sticks out the most is a fake leg. We were aware of a passenger with a prosthetic leg as PRM agents brought him on board with an ambulift, but we never thought he could leave his leg behind." "Before I became a flight attendant, I worked in customer service and as a ramp agent at my station. We were the regional for a larger carrier, so we did a lot of things ourselves, like catering, taking care of missed baggage, and even having our own lost and found. Well, one day, I was watching the lost and found desk and one of our gate agents came in with a laptop. She said she found it at an empty gate, so I had no flight information to go off of. The laptop had no stickers or other identifying information on it, so I thought to myself, 'Hmm, I bet if I open it, it will have a lock screen with the owner's name.' So I opened it. But the laptop didn't open to the lock screen, it opened to the tab the owner had been viewing, which was a porn site." "My aunt said that on one flight on Thanksgiving, they were serving turkey to the first-class customers (back when they still served food). As they brought the turkey out and were about to start serving the people, they hit some turbulence and the turkey fell on the ground. It was the only turkey they had, so she simply picked it up and walked to the back 'to get a new one.' In reality, she just dusted it off and brought the same one back." "A customer pooped in their drink cup and left it on the galley counter. Said she didn't want to wait for the bathroom, and that she 'took care of it' at her seat. I almost lost it." "One time, I was picking up trash and recycling, and a man handed me a porno magazine. X-rated. Just unabashedly gave it to me. I was shocked when I looked down, not because he gave it to me, but because he must've thought it was appropriate reading material for a public place and had finished it during the flight!" "A while back, I (pilot) was collecting an aircraft and asked the inbound crew how their flight down was. She responded that it was pretty normal except she had to reprimand a couple for licking each other's nipples. She didn't even seem that fazed by it." "My friend is an airline attendant, and she said the worst thing she ever found on a plane was a bloody dildo. Don't want to know where or when it was used, but needless to say, they all walked on by and notified the cleaners they'd need a biohazard bag. And what's found the blood first." "An older gentleman, probably in his late 60s to early 70s, boarded the plane and told me he had bathroom issues. I was working the aft galley and he sat in the very last row. I assumed he meant he had bladder issues and had to pee frequently, so I didn't really pay any attention. Just before we went into sterile flight on the descent, he got up as quickly as a man of his age could and rushed to the lavatory. He did his business and sat back down." "We had a passenger come up to us mid-red eye flight from Reno to Dallas. Another passenger had peed in the aisle right next to her. Like, stood up, walked 15 feet, and peed. Police met the plane, and he had no idea what happened, nor did his wife." "A friend of mine who used to work as a flight attendant walked in to clean the cabin and found a used condom on the floor near the last row. Apparently, someone thought the plane was a love hotel, and I guess they joined the mile-high club and just left the receipt." "My father worked for an airline for over 30 years and shared this story with me based on one of his colleagues' experiences. On a flight from JFK to Heathrow post-9/11, while the plane was about fourth or fifth in line for takeoff, an American lady demanded to be let off the plane. The attendant naturally refused since the doors were closed, and they were almost at the runway. The lady went nuts and called 911 from her cellphone and said she was an American citizen being held against her will on a foreign airline, and — as they were about to take off — she was going to be taken to another country." "I was a flight attendant for five years. I have enough wild stories to write a book, maybe two. I've been punched in the face, propositioned, witnessed multiple couples try to get it on in the seats, had one couple try to do it in the galley, had my butt pinched, watched arguments break out over seats being reclined, been told the quality of ginger ale I serve is not of a high enough caliber, seen bare feet on bulkhead walls at face level, had someone try to stow their luggage on my jump seat shortly before landing, and had trash dumped on my food tray while I was still eating from it." "Former flight attendant. I found a sick bag full of piss in a seat back once." "I found poop on a chair. Figured out it was an older gentleman. We tried to see if he had another flight so we could let him know, but unfortunately (fortunately?), he only had our flight. Poor guy had no idea." "My mom was a flight attendant. One time, lightning struck the plane she was in and the engine just shit the bed for a few seconds (which, of course, felt like an eternity). The lights went out, cabin pressure dropped, and the little ceiling bags popped out. The plane dropped in altitude very rapidly, and was over and everything went back to normal. Flight attendants deserve serious props! They have to think quickly, act accordingly, and stay calm in situations like that." "Quoting my older sister's fiancé (he's a first officer pilot): 'There have been three butt plugs found thus far for my trip from NYC to Miami, and I don't know why.'" "I used to work for an airline, which meant I got to fly for free as a standby passenger. This is called 'non-revving' (non-revenue passenger). So this one day, I was taking a flight to New York as a non-rev, and there was a girl from our airline who worked as a gate agent on there with a bunch of her friends. Non-revving is a delicate thing sometimes — there are a lot of rules that the airline makes you follow so you don't tarnish their image. I almost got denied entry once because I wasn't wearing dress shoes. These girls boarded and immediately started acting up." "A passenger changed their baby's diaper on their tray table. 🤢" And finally, "I got upgraded on a two-hour flight a while back. I was sitting across the aisle from a mom and her two young sons when I heard, 'Mom, I have to go poop.' Keep in mind we were, like, eight rows from the closest bathroom. But nah, instead of escorting her child to the bathroom, she had him stand up in between the seat and the seat back in front of him while she cupped her hands under his ass. That kid shit into her hands. Why." Do you (or have you ever) work at the airport or on an airplane? Do you have any horrifying stories like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments or via the anonymous form below and your story might just be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post.
