Oxford museum to return remains of 39 people taken during colonial rule in India

The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University has agreed to return the remains of 39 people taken from the Naga community in northeast India during Britain’s colonial rule.

The decision followed a restitution request from the Forum for Naga Reconciliation and other organizations. Their request covered 40 sets of human remains, but the university approved the return of 39 in July because one set “does not have a clear provenance as Naga.” The museum said it is working closely with the Naga community to choose a date for a handover ceremony.

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have been away from their homeland for far too long.

The museum’s director, Laura Van Broekhoven, said the remains “have been away from their homeland for far too long.” The Forum for Naga Reconciliation and other Naga organizations said repatriation was not simply a matter of returning bones and ancestral remains. It was also about “memory returning to where it belongs.”

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memory returning to where it belongs

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds more than 6,000 Naga artifacts. Dr. Ellen Konyak Jamir, a Forum for Naga Reconciliation member and coordinator for the Recover Restore and Decolonise research initiative, told MorungExpress that recovering the artifacts was a complex process and not the group’s current focus.

The museum has faced criticism over racism and cultural insensitivity, including its former displays of shrunken heads and other human remains. In 2020, it removed 120 remains, including tsantsas, Naga trophy heads and an Egyptian child mummy, as part of a broader effort to decolonize its collections. The university’s agreement with the Naga groups forms part of a wider international movement to return human remains and artifacts acquired by Western institutions during the colonial era.

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does not have a clear provenance as Naga