“For more than a hundred years, human remains of Naga ancestors and sacred objects were taken from the Naga homelands and placed in Museums, libraries, and private collections across the world. Founded in 1884, the Pitt Rivers Museum – PRM is part of the University of Oxford, and it holds the largest collection of Naga artifacts in the world”
In 2020, the Pitt Rivers Museum decided to remove human remains from their exhibition and renewed their efforts to collaborate with various communities to return ancestral human remains taken during the period of British imperialism. As part of the decolonizing process, they are exploring the healing journey through working closely with these communities. The Naga human remains are part of this endeavor to return them to the people.
Since the Forum for Naga Reconciliation’s (FNR) ongoing work with communities and groups on reconciliation and healing are a response to historical violence, the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) reached out to FNR to facilitate a process of community dialogue regarding the “future care and/or return” of Naga ancestral human remains. As part of this facilitating process, the FNR formed the Recover Restore and Decolonize (RRaD) team to study and network with indigenous experts, conduct participatory action research, generate public awareness, and develop a strong viable case to make an official claim to the University of Oxford.
Following a series of focus group discussions, RRaD held an orientation with the media corps facilitated by Dolly Kikon on August 27, 2022. The session addressed the essential role the media plays in ushering more public awareness and better understanding for people to engage in constructive interactions and make informed decisions on the issues of repatriation. A PRM film was screened that provides background information on the Naga collection and the process for repatriating ancestral human remains. The RRaD logo was also released.
The orientation emphasized the need for discernment by the media corps, particularly indigenous journalists, while reporting and investigating this sensitive topic. Key terms such as “decolonization,” “repatriation,” and “indigenous” need to be reframed and contextualized. Discussion centered round an overview of global, regional, and local coverage on repatriation and situating the Naga journalists in this matrix, the importance of unpacking the history of colonization within global and local contexts, the importance of understanding the existing worldviews – Christian worldview vis-à-vis indigenous belief systems and traditions, and the essence of undertaking a self-reflective journey as an indigenous journalist.