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United Kingdom·India·Human Rights

Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum to return Naga ancestral remains to northeast India after six years of negotiations

Friday, 11 September 2026, 06:24 · 1 min read

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford has announced it will return 39 pieces of human remains — including skull fragments, a finger, and a piece of skin with hair — to the Naga people of Nagaland (a state in northeast India bordering Myanmar), concluding six years of negotiations over items collected during British colonial rule. The remains, most of which were coercively acquired by colonial administrators and displayed for roughly 80 years, will be handed over at a ceremony in Oxford in November before being laid to rest in a traditional community ceremony in the state capital, Kohima. Naga community leaders and anthropologists hailed the repatriation as a moment of healing, with one negotiator saying, "Our forefathers are coming back."

Sources
The Guardian — ‘Our forefathers are coming back’: Naga people celebrate after Oxford museum agrees to return remains ↗︎
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