Museum agrees to return remains to ancestral homeland

More than three dozen sets of human remains taken during the British colonial rule of India and Myanmar are set to be returned to their ancestral home by a museum.

Skulls and bones belonging to the Naga people of northeastern India and Myanmar - formerly known as Burma - have been displayed at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford for more than a century.

In 2020, the museum removed all human remains from public display as part of what the it called a "decolonisation process" - including the ancestral Naga remains.

The museum has now announced that a formal decision has been made by the University of Oxford Council to return the 39 ancestral human remains to their homeland.

"They've been here in a foreign land for more than a century," Dr Vihuto Asumi, President of the Sumî Hoho Naga tribe, said of the remains.

"We believe that their spirits are still not at rest - so by doing this, we believe it will bring spiritual healing, not only to the ancestral remains here but to everyone who died during the head-hunting days."

The Pitt Rivers claims to hold the largest collection of Naga artefacts in the world, most of which were acquired during British colonial rule in India and Myanmar.

Many were acquired by John Henry Hutton, a colonial administrator in the Indian Civil Service and an anthropologist, who handed them to the museum more than a century ago.

Among the museum's Naga collection - which contains several thousand items - are 219 items listed as human remains, 39 ancestral human remains and 178 objects that are thought to contain human hair.

The latest announcement concerns only the ancestral remains, and follows a declaration made by a Naga delegation visiting Oxford in 2025, in which the group requested the objects be returned.

The museum's director, Prof Laura Van Broekhoven, said: "It has been a long journey to get to this moment."

"We know that this week will be one where we will feel both grief and sadness when looking back on that past, and also where hope is possible as we work towards reconciliation and healing."

Following the decision, the Pitt Rivers is now organising an official handover ceremony involving a Naga delegation.

The Naga will then accompany the remains of their ancestors home, with some returning for the first time in more than a century.