Naga skulls: Indian tribes try to bring home ancestral remains from British museums

As part of an ethical review, the museum removed Naga skulls from public view and into storage in 2020. This is when FNR demanded their repatriation, external for the first time.

The museum said it has not yet received a formal claim from Naga descendants and that the processes to return human remains “could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, depending on the complexity of the case.”

Repatriating human remains is more complicated than returning artifacts. It requires extensive research to determine whether the objects were collected ethically, to identify descendants and to navigate complex international regulations on the movement of human remains.

The Naga Forum has formed a group called Recover, Restore and Decolonise among anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer to facilitate returns.

“It’s a bit like detective work,” Longkumer said. “We have to sift through layers of information and try to read between the lines to actually find out about the exact nature of the collections and where they come from.”

But for the Naga people, this process is not merely logistics. “We are dealing with human remains,” Konyak said. “It is an international and legal process, but for us also a spiritual process.”

The group has traveled to villages, met Naga elders, organized lectures and distributed educational materials such as comic books and videos to raise awareness.

They also try to reach consensus on topics such as the last rites of repatriated remains. Most Nagas now follow Christianity, but their ancestors were animists who followed various birth and death rituals.