Full Breakdown
Repatriation of Naga Ancestral Remains from Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event: Return of 39 Human Remains to Nagaland
The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford has agreed to send 39 pieces of human remains—skulls, a finger, skin with hair and other fragments—back to the Indigenous Naga peoples of Nagaland, India. A hand-over ceremony is planned for November, with the remains expected to arrive in Nagaland before the end of the year and be interred in a traditional ceremony in the state capital, Kohima.
Background & Context
Most of the Naga material in the museum was collected coercively by colonial administrators James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton between 1910 and 1940. The museum’s ethnological collection now includes roughly 6,500 Naga objects, of which 898 were on display before the human remains were removed in 2020 as part of an ethical review. Negotiations began in 2020 after Prof Dolly Kikon wrote to the museum, prompting a formal claim filed by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation. The University of Oxford Council approved the return of 39 remains in July 2026, declining one item lacking clear provenance.
Key Figures & Groups
- Peihwang Wangsa – Indigenous Konyak man and community negotiator.
- Prof Dolly Kikon – Naga anthropologist who initiated the 2020 correspondence.
- Arkotong Longkumer – Naga anthropologist (Edinburgh University) who helped coordinate village outreach.
- Laura Van Broekhoven – Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum.
- Forum for Naga Reconciliation – Community peace group leading the “Recover, Restore and Decolonise” effort.
Official Statements & Responses
It added that the repatriation follows years of collaboration with Naga partners and that the University of Oxford Council’s decision was “intentional.”
Verbatim Quotes
- “It has been a journey of redemption,” — Prof Dolly Kikon
- “They travelled to villages and organised meetings to inform people about the remains,” — Arkotong Longkumer
- “It was an intergenerational journey that brought together students, civil society, tribal leaders and the church,” — Arkotong Longkumer
- “I had never known our ancestral human remains had been taken away like that,” — Peihwang Wangsa
These statements and the coordinated effort illustrate a rare instance of a major UK museum returning ancestral human remains to an Indigenous community, marking what officials describe as the museum’s largest repatriation of such material to date.
