More than three dozen sets of human remains taken during the British colonial rule of India and Myanmar are set to be returned to their ancestral home by a museum.
Skulls and bones belonging to the Naga people of northeastern India and Myanmar – formerly known as Burma – have been displayed at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford for more than a century.
In 2020, the museum removed all human remains from public display as part of what the it called a “decolonisation process” – including the ancestral Naga remains.
The museum has now announced that a formal decision has been made by the University of Oxford Council to return the 39 ancestral human remains to their homeland.
“They’ve been here in a foreign land for more than a century,” Dr Vihuto Asumi, President of the Sumî Hoho Naga tribe, said of the remains.
“We believe that their spirits are still not at rest – so by doing this, we believe it will bring spiritual healing, not only to the ancestral remains here but to everyone who died during the head-hunting days.”
