Why Nagas want overseas museums to repatriate ancestral human remains in their collections
A proposed auction of a 19th-century human skull comes at a time when museums have been reckoning with the legacy of the plunder of colonised populations.
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A “19th-century horned Naga human skull, Naga tribe” was listed as part of an auction scheduled for October 9 by The Swan at Tetsworth, an antiques centre based in the United Kingdom. Valued at 3,500 pounds-4,000 pounds, the Naga ancestral remains were listed alongside other human remains – “shrunken heads” and skulls from South America and West Africa.
The Naga remains were listed by The Swan as part of “The curious collector” sale alongside manuscripts, jewellery, ceramics and other objects.
When the proposed auction came the attention on October 7 of The Forum for Naga Reconciliation, comprising civil society representatives and church leaders, they demanded that the sale be stopped. The forum said it was an “inhumane and violent practice” that indigenous ancestral human remains continue to be “collector’s items in the 21st century”.
“Throughout the period of British rule, the Naga people were defined as ‘savages’ and ‘headhunters’, which are insulting tropes that continue to be perpetuated today,” said the forum. The appeal, signed by forum convenor Wati Aier, called on India and the UK to facilitate the repatriation of the remains.
My ancestor is not your aesthetic!!
Absolutely horrific how our Naga ancestral remains are being sold at an auction in 2024!? How is this even allowed!? Do...
