Preparations are underway for the return of 39 Naga ancestral human remains from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, with the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) saying the homecoming will include arrangements for burial and prayer in Nagaland.
In a statement issued following the announcement of the repatriation, the FNR said the occasion is being planned in an inclusive manner, involving Naga tribal hohos and wider sections of the community. It said the return of the remains would provide an opportunity for the Naga people to receive and lay their ancestors to rest after generations away from their homeland.
The FNR said its Recover, Restore and Decolonize team (FNR-RRaD) has been engaged with the Pitt Rivers Museum for the past six years in connection with the repatriation.
The forum said the process has involved sustained dialogue between the Naga side and the museum and credited the resolve of Naga tribal hohos with helping bring the process to its present stage.
According to the FNR, preparations for the homecoming are being undertaken with attention to the cultural, spiritual and social significance of the remains. It said the return would allow rituals of burial and prayer to be carried out and provide an opportunity for the community to acknowledge and honour the ancestors whose remains were taken from their homeland.
The FNR said it views the repatriation as part of a wider process of healing and reconciliation. It said the occasion should create space not only to address the legacy of colonial practices but also to reflect on wounds and divisions experienced by Naga society over the decades.
The forum said the return is therefore being planned as an inclusive process, with the aim of allowing the significance of the homecoming to be considered at both individual and community levels.
The 39 ancestral remains are being repatriated by the Pitt Rivers Museum following a decision to return them to the Naga people. The museum, the FNR noted, had earlier decided that human remains would no longer be displayed and the remains were removed from exhibition.
The FNR said this change created the context for dialogue between the museum and Naga representatives.
Professor Dr Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, has acknowledged the history surrounding the removal of human remains during the colonial period. According to the FNR, she offered an apology to the Naga people for the removal of ancestral remains from their homeland and their subsequent treatment as objects of anthropological interest.
The forum said the engagement with the museum also represented an opportunity to establish a different relationship between Naga communities and Western institutions holding materials connected to Naga history.
It stressed that the Pitt Rivers Museum is not a British government institution and that the FNR is not a government body. The repatriation, it said, has emerged through engagement between the museum and Naga representatives.
The FNR placed the issue within the broader question of how indigenous human remains were collected and treated during the colonial period. It said many remains were taken without the consent of the communities concerned and subsequently treated as specimens or objects of study.
For the forum, the return of the Naga remains raises questions of human dignity, cultural rights and the ability of indigenous communities to determine how their ancestral remains are treated.
It said repatriation also creates an opportunity for a different form of engagement in which Naga communities can have a greater role in telling their own history and determining how their cultural heritage is represented.
The FNR further connected the homecoming to the Naga reconciliation process, saying historical wounds cannot be considered separately from the experiences of militarisation and conflict within Naga society.
It said the occasion could provide space for reflection on these experiences and contribute to a broader process of reconciliation and healing.
The forum also referred to Naga understandings of ancestors and their relationship with the living. It said the remains are not viewed merely as historical objects but as belonging to a cultural and spiritual relationship between ancestors, the land and the community.
The return, according to the FNR, would therefore make it possible for burial and prayer to be performed for the remains and for the community to restore a relationship that was disrupted when the remains were taken away.
The forum described the forthcoming homecoming as the beginning of a wider socio-cultural conversation involving memory, identity, history and reconciliation.
It said the process would require continued dialogue among Naga communities and between Naga representatives and institutions outside the region.
The FNR said the return of the 39 remains should ultimately be understood not simply as the transfer of human remains from a museum to their homeland, but as an opportunity to confront the history surrounding their removal and to consider how such histories are remembered in the present.
The forum said preparations for the homecoming would continue in an inclusive manner as arrangements are made for the remains to return to Nagaland and receive their final resting place.
