Nearly 130 years later, the head of a Malagasy king killed by French troops during a colonial-era war has been formally returned to Madagascar, following years of pressure from both the king’s descendants and the government of the Indian Ocean nation.
The skulls had been taken to France at the end of the 19th century and stored at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.
This repatriation marks the first use of a new French law designed to expedite the return of human remains held in national collections.
The handover of King Toera’s skull, along with those of two other members of his court, took place during a ceremony at the Ministry of Culture in Paris.
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” said French Culture Minister Rachida Dati.
Madagascar’s Culture Minister, Volamiranty Mara, who also spoke at the ceremony, described the return of the skulls as a “significant gesture.”
“Their absence has been, for more than a century, an open wound in the heart of our island,” she said.
In August 1897, a French force dispatched to assert colonial control over the Menabé Kingdom of the Sakalava people in western Madagascar massacred a local army.
King Toera was killed and decapitated; his head was then sent to Paris, where it was placed in the archives of the Museum of Natural History.
Although DNA tests conducted years ago were inconclusive, the skull was ultimately identified as King Toera’s through confirmation by a traditional Sakalava spirit medium.
This is not the first time France has returned human remains from the colonial era.
One of the most well-known cases was that of a South African woman cruelly nicknamed the “Hottentot Venus,” who had been exhibited in Europe. Her remains were returned to South Africa in 2012.
However, this is the first repatriation under the new law, which has made the process significantly easier.
It is estimated that the Museum of Natural History alone holds more than 20,000 human remains taken from around the world for supposedly scientific reasons.
