Naga delegation arrives in UK seeking return of over 200 human remains of their ancestors, stolen during British raj, from Oxford University’s museum

A delegation comprising Naga tribals and senior leaders is currently in the United Kingdom seeking the repatriation of the human remains of their Naga ancestors, which were taken away to the UK by colonial period. The delegation includes members of different Naga tribal bodies, members of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), and the Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) team.

More than 200 remains of Naga tribes are said to had been taken away by the British raj during the colonial period. Many of them were on display at Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) of the University of Oxford until 2020.

A declaration was made by the Naga delegation on Friday (14^th June) at the Lecture Theatre of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which said that the repatriation process of the remains is a step towards the healing and wholeness of the Naga people.

“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,” said the declaration, which arrived in the UK on 8^th June.

“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 leaders expressed regret that the journey to reclaim the remains of their forefathers have taken decades, but underscored their united commitment to returning the ancestral human remains from foreign museums and ensuring a dignified resting place for them. The declaration said, “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 delegation expressed solidarity with other indigenous peoples across the world, who also seek repatriation of things forming part of their history. It has been holding dialogues with the administration of Pitt Rivers Museum to initiate the process of repatriation of the Naga remains.

Director of the PRM, Professor Dr Laura van Broekhoven welcomed the Naga delegation and described the repatriation process as step towards reconciliation and healing. “…over a century ago, the first Naga ancestral human remain was donated by (John Henry) Hutton to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Many others followed later. These ancestral remains have been in our care since then. We know that this week will be one where we will both feel grief and sadness when looking back on that past, and also where hope is possible as we work towards reconciliation and healing in the future. I hope we can support and hold each other throughout this process,” said the professor.

Accepting the welcome, Reverend Dr Ellen Kanyak Jamir, coordinator of RRaD and member of FNR, said that the presence of the Naga delegation represented a sacred journey of repatriation which started 5 years ago. “We recognise and express our sincere appreciation for the PRM’s commitment to change, and ethical stewardship. We come with hope in the process, may this journey appease our ancestors and our communities,” Jamir said.

Notably, the Pitt Rivers Museum is one of the most important ethnological museums in the world, and it displays the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. Majority of the items on display in the museum were collected by colonial officials, apart from travellers, scholars, and missionaries. In recent times, the museum have started removing human remains from its collection, mostly to address the museum’s problematic colonial past.

In 2020, they removed the famous shrunken human heads, along with Egyptian mummies and other human remains, collected during the colonial era.

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