Guwahati: For more than a century, they remained behind glass cases and in storerooms at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum — thousands of miles away from the hills and communities to which they belonged.On Monday, the remains of 39 Nagas, most of them skulls taken during British colonial rule in India, were formally handed back to representatives from Nagaland, marking a poignant homecoming.A delegation of around 30 people from Nagaland attended the handover ceremony at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum.The remains will be brought back to India and laid to rest in what Naga tribal leaders have described as “a respectful rest” at a shared memorial in a park in Nagaland.According to a BBC report on Tuesday, museum director Laura Van Broekhoven called the transfer “a historic moment that will be part of stories told to next generations”. She said the remains were finally on their way home after overcoming “so much red tape everywhere”.The museum, on its website, described the repatriation as “A Path Home: The Return of Naga Ancestral Remains from the Pitt Rivers Museum to the Naga Homeland.”“This is the culmination of a Naga-led process of dialogue, research and reconciliation that began in 2020, supported by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, in collaboration with the Pitt Rivers Museum, a process the Naga partners describe as not an ending but as a step on the longer path towards healing,” the museum website says.About 30 Naga representatives gathered at the museum for the ceremony where museum director Broekhoven and Rev Dr Wati Aier, on behalf of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), signed the transfer agreement. Thejao Vihienuo, for the Naga Tribe Hoho, and Visier Sanyü, for the FNR, signed as witnesses.The museum states the remains reached Oxford between the 1910s and 1940s, in the hands of colonial officials. The museum acknowledges that some items gathered in that period were seized during colonial military operations, not freely given.It displayed the remains for decades, then removed them from public view in 2020 as part of what it called a “decolonisation process”. The university council approved the return on July 13 after a formal claim by the FNR.The Oxford University Council approved the return on July 13 after a formal claim from the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR). It declined to return one remain whose Naga provenance is unclear.“Reflecting on the context,” the museum states that the “Nagas have consistently challenged the colonial framing of these heads as mere ‘headhunting trophies’ and evidence suggests that many of these were of loved ones who were cared for by clan and village members.”The museum holds the world’s largest collection of Naga material. It lists 219 items as Naga human remains, including 39 ancestral remains and 178 objects that contain, or may contain, human hair. The current lot covers the 39 ancestral remains.
