The Pitt Rivers Museum, which holds the world’s largest Naga collection, has agreed to repatriate 39 human remains belonging to the Naga people. The handover, scheduled for November, will mark the largest repatriation of human remains from the museum.
The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has agreed to repatriate 39 human remains belonging to the Naga people that were taken during colonial rule and put on display for decades. The Pitt Rivers Museum, which holds collections from Oxford University, has the world’s largest Naga collection with around 8,000 Naga objects, including human remains, mainly skulls, and 178 objects that contain or may contain human hair.
Skulls and other body parts were often taken from Asia, Africa, and elsewhere to Britain during colonial times as 'trophies'. In 2020, the Pitt Rivers Museum removed all human remains from public display following growing calls worldwide for such human remains to be returned to their communities. These calls are part of a wider movement seeking reparations for colonialism and slavery.
On Saturday, Naga Tribe Hobos and the Forum for Naga Reconciliation said in a statement that a Naga delegation will travel to the Pitt Rivers Museum to ‘claim and return’ the ancestral remains. The handover, scheduled for November, will be the largest repatriation of human remains from the museum, according to Pitt Rivers director Laura Van Broekhoven.
Naga representatives have sought the return of the remains for years, with formal discussions with the Pitt Rivers Museum beginning in 2020. In 2025, a team of Naga representatives visited the museum for talks as part of the repatriation process.
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