Naga voices rise from UK museum cabinets

ISTAND here to give the closing reflections for this historic visit of the Naga delegation to the Pitt Rivers Museum. I see this gathering as a fellowship filled with allies, friends and mentors who have witnessed our weary journey and our weary tears. Friends and colleagues who believed in our quest for justice and peace, in our vision for repatriation linked with reconciliation.

All indigenous repatriation journeys underscore the misplaced emphasis on research that focuses on “studying" communities, and instead commit to new pedagogies that centre on co-learning, co-creation, and, for a change, listening to the Indigenous people shepherding the process. Through the repatriation process, we are creating a new truth and marching towards the new promises of peace and a shared future.

We call upon museums and educational institutions in the UK and across the world to stop creating labels and categories that define humans as inferior and superior. Today, we must leave this place with a conviction to break away from the colonial moulds.

We invite you to come together to build the infrastructure of hope, justice and decolonisation. It is a difficult path, so we must learn to practise humility, healing and deep wisdom. Decolonisation creates new identities, new movements and new inclusions. These are the rhythms of justice. The journey of Naga repatriation is about addressing these questions, and our ancestors are integral to our journey. It is about a collaboration that enhances imagination, moving us towards a shared future and humanising one another.

Yesterday, I stood beside the cabinet where the Naga ancestral remains were displayed for more than a century. I read the quotations and tried to imagine what it must have felt like for a visitor to look at my ancestors behind the glass cabinets. “Descendants of the human remains? That’s interesting," one woman remarked. I stood there quietly, feeling a deep sorrow in my heart.

Did the Naga people forget about them? No, we did not. We have arrived here as survivors of one of the world’s longest armed conflicts. All long-drawn conflicts lead to deep militarisation and structural violence. As the Naga people began to work on peace, reconciliation and healing, there was a collective calling to introspect and work together to regain the humanity and dignity that had been taken away from us.

Who would have thought of a day when the descendants of ancestors strung on the walls of this museum would travel thousands of kilometres to talk about humanisation?

Since we walked into this museum on 9th June 2025, the Naga delegation has experienced many extraordinary things. We have had strange dreams; some of us have experienced darkness surfacing from our souls. This is our collective Naga trauma erupting within the buildings of the Pitt Rivers Museum — an institution whose collections are connected to a dark colonial past, but is currently working towards redressal, decolonisation and social justice.

I have felt a force that has guided me through the Naga objects here: bamboo tools, iron spear heads, wooden toys, cotton textiles. I felt them come alive with joy and embrace me. I felt the hands that created them, touched them and the hands that took them away and brought them here as “collections".

This is not merely a return of objects or remains — it is the return of memory, spirit and voice. Each artefact and each ancestor carries a story forcibly paused by colonialism. Repatriation reclaims that story, restores dignity, and reconnects a people to the sacred rhythm of their past. This is a historic moment — during a challenging time in the world where we must choose love and hope over indifference and violence.

The Naga repatriation is centred on care and love, and this is always to recognise, respect, and remember the elders who planted this seed of liberation and healing — the journey to rehumanise our ancestors and one another.

The Naga voice on repatriation is all about human remains still incarcerated within the walls of institutions. They must go back to their people to be laid to rest.

This is not the time for the Nagas to create an ego for ourselves — this is the call from a people who invite you to create alternatives and strategies centering indigeneity.

The journey forward is to free the past from the shackles of people, cultures, and institutions that were entrenched within the walls of colonialism and division. We are all called to be messengers of engaging with the broken pieces of human and non-human remains from the past, working towards healing the future.

Colonialism was a project of division. The core value of repatriation from an Indigenous Naga lens is liberation and work, for there is much work to be done. The 21st century is a century of repatriation. Let us celebrate this moment.

Courtesy: The Morung Express

Dolly Kikon is Professor, dept of Anthropology, University of California.

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