The remains of 39 individuals who were removed from the Naga community during British colonial control in India have been returned by the University of Oxford. On Monday, a group of about thirty individuals from the hilly state of Nagaland in northeastern India attended a ceremony at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to commemorate the transfer. Naga tribal chiefs have described the remains the majority of which are skulls as being given a “respectful rest” when they return to India. They will be buried behind a combined memorial in a Nagaland park.
“A historic moment that will be part of stories told to next generations” is how museum director Laura Van Broekhoven put it. After getting past “so much red tape everywhere,” she said the remains were eventually headed home. Before being taken out of public view in 2020 as part of what it called a “decolonisation process,” the human remains were on display at the Oxford museum for decades. With almost 6,000 artefacts related to Naga culture, the Pitt Rivers Museum is thought to have the world’s greatest collection. The majority were obtained in India and Myanmar (now Burma) during British colonial control.
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