Naga Indian Tribe Aims to Reclaim Ancestral Artifacts and Human Remains Before Auction

The European colonial past, although it seeks to be minimized by certain countries, is extremely visible in the cultural domain. Indeed, it is not uncommon to go to a museum and observe artifacts or rare pieces from all countries and all eras that have not necessarily been recovered in a very ethical manner. Recently, members of the Naga tribe were “shocked” to see that their ancestors' heirlooms were going to be auctioned off.

An act “ dehumanizing ”

In the Indian state of Nagaland, it is in this term that the auction organized by The Swanthe antiquities center of the United Kingdom, was described to the Indian foreign minister in a letter written by Neiphiu Rio, the chief minister of the state.

For her part, as reported by the BBC, the news of this auction reached the ears of Ellen Konyak, member of an association seeking to facilitate the return of artifacts to their land of origin, the Naga Forum for Reconciliation (NFR), was particularly shocking for her.

“Seeing that people continue to auction off the human remains of our ancestors in the 21st century is shocking. It was deeply hurtful.” she declared to the Delhi branch of the British media.

Around 50,000 Naga objects in the UK

If faced with the scale of the controversy, The Swan took the decision to cancel the auction, the damage was done and the voices demanding the repatriation of the objects and human remains of the Indian tribe were heard with greater force.

According to Alok Kumar Kanungo, a researcher and expert on the Naga tribe, the United Kingdom has nearly 50,000 objects that belonged to the Indian tribe. Not all were taken illegally, researchers believe some human remains and artifacts were traded or given as gifts when the United Kingdom had colonized the Asian country.

And in the country, one museum in particular would concentrate a large part of the Naga objects collected throughout history, the Pitt Rivers Museum of theOxford University. Indeed, according to the BBC, in its Naga collection, the cultural institution has more than 6,500 objects including around forty human remains.

In this collection, Ellen Konyak even had the unpleasant surprise of recognizing objects that are part of her personal heritage and her village. “I said to myself: Oh my god, that belonged to one of my ancestors!” she declared to the BBC.

The need to repatriate these historical objects

For several years now, cultural institutions and the governments that control them have been paving the way for the return to their native lands of historical objects that were stolen from an era that would like to be forgotten.

It is in this sense that Ellen Konyak is campaigning for the return of objects from the Naga tribe to India. But to succeed in returning the human remains, the NFR has also set up a team of “detectives” made up of anthropologists who will seek to find out who the people whose bones were collected were, who their possible descendants are and to find out if the bones were taken ethically or unethically.

Even if the work proves to be titanic and time-consuming and the human remains and other artifacts will surely take time to return to India, Ellen Konyak does not budge, “we want to collect them as a sign of respect for our elders. To reclaim our history. To claim our story.”

Source: BBC