Oxford museum returns ancestral Naga remains to India

The Pitt Rivers Museum has initiated the return of 39 ancestral remains to India following a formal request made by a Naga delegation during their visit to Oxford in 2025. This decision to repatriate the items was announced by the institution in September.

The museum, which was established in the 19th Century, houses a collection of over 6,000 objects related to Naga culture, representing what is believed to be the largest such archive globally. These items were largely obtained during the period of British colonial rule in India and Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma.

According to the museum's website, there are 219 human remains within the collection, which were acquired between 1910 and 1940. The site notes that objects gathered during this era were "frequently confiscated during punitive military expeditions, rather than freely given" by the two colonial administrators and anthropologists responsible for the acquisitions.

During the recent trip to Oxford, the Naga delegates held discussions with descendants of one of the anthropologists linked to the collection. Reflecting on the history of the remains, tribal leader Thejao Vihienuo told AFP: "The manner in which these human remains were taken away from our land leaves much for us to speculate." He added: "I suspect that nobody would have given the skull of his father or his grandfather as a gift to another person."

While anthropologists have noted that the Naga people historically engaged in head hunting, preserving the heads of enemies as trophies, they also kept the remains of their own village chiefs. The Pitt Rivers Museum has a history of returning human remains to indigenous groups in the US, New Zealand and Australia.