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A man carries a box containing human remains before a ceremony to return three skulls originating in Madagascar, at the Ministry of Culture, in Paris, France, on Tuesday [Photo: EPA]
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France has returned three human skulls to Madagascar, 128 years after they were looted during the colonial era, including one believed to belong to King Toera, who was decapitated by French troops in 1897.
The remains, taken from members of the Sakalava ethnic group, were formally handed over during a ceremony at the French Ministry of Culture on Tuesday. Video from the event showed three boxes draped in traditional cloth carried in a solemn procession into the ornate hall of the ministry.
French forces beheaded King Toera during a massacre in 1897 and took his skull to France as a trophy. It was later placed in Paris’s Musée de l’Homme, alongside hundreds of other remains from Madagascar and beyond.
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati said during the handover.
Her Malagasy counterpart, Volamiranty Donna Mara, welcomed the return, describing the removal of the skulls as “an open wound in the heart of our island for more than a century, 128 years.”
“They are not collectors’ items; they are the invisible and indelible link that unites our present to our past,” Mara added. A joint scientific committee confirmed that the three skulls were of Sakalava origin but said it could only “presume” that one belonged to King Toera, according to Dati.
The restitution marks the first handover of human remains since France passed a law in 2023 to facilitate the return of looted cultural artefacts and ancestral remains. Of the 30,000 specimens at Paris’s Musée de l’Homme, around a third are skulls and skeletons from across the world. Countries including Australia and Argentina have already lodged their own restitution requests.
During a visit to Antananarivo in April, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged France’s “bloody and tragic” colonisation of Madagascar, which lasted more than 60 years until the island gained independence in 1960. He also spoke of seeking forgiveness for the atrocities committed.
The skulls are scheduled to arrive in Madagascar on Sunday, where they will be buried. Mara said the government plans to honour the remains in a ceremony to coincide with the anniversary of King Toera’s execution in late August 1897.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
