Guwahati: The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has agreed to return 39 human remains belonging to the Naga community that were taken during the colonial period and kept in its collections for decades.
The remains are held by the Pitt Rivers Museum, which houses one of the largest collections of Naga material in the world. The museum has around 8,000 Naga objects, including human remains, predominantly skulls, along with 178 items containing or potentially containing human hair.
The museum removed all human remains from public display in 2020, according to Reuters.
During the colonial era, human remains were frequently taken from parts of Asia, Africa and other regions and transported to Britain and other colonial powers. Such remains were often treated as trophies, traded among collectors, displayed in museums or subjected to scientific study.
The return of the Naga remains comes amid increasing international demands for museums and institutions to repatriate human remains, artworks and cultural objects acquired during colonial rule.
The Naga Tribe Hobos and the Forum for Naga Reconciliation said on Saturday that a Naga delegation would travel to the Pitt Rivers Museum to receive and bring back the ancestral remains.
The repatriation is scheduled to take place in November and is expected to be the largest return of human remains in the history of the Pitt Rivers Museum, according to comments by museum director Laura Van Broekhoven cited by The New York Times.
Naga representatives have been seeking the return of the remains for several years, with formal discussions with the museum beginning in 2020.
As part of the process, a delegation of Naga representatives visited the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2025 for discussions on the proposed repatriation.
The planned handover marks a significant step in efforts by Naga communities to reclaim ancestral remains taken during the colonial period and restore them to their place of origin.