Ogona Anita
King Toera was beheaded by French troops in 1897, and his skull was subsequecntly taken to France as a colonial trophy.
France has returned three human skulls looted during the colonial period to Madagascar, including one believed to be that of King Toera, who was beheaded by French troops in 1897.
King Toera was beheaded by French troops in 1897, and his skull was subsequently taken to France as a colonial trophy.
The formal handover ceremony held at the French Ministry of Culture on Tuesday marks a significant step towards healing historical wounds and acknowledging the colonial past, according to Al Jazeer.\
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” said French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati.
Volamiranty Donna Mara, Madagascar’s counterpart, praised the handover, saying, “They are not collectors’ items; they are the invisible and indelible link that unites our present to our past.”
The skulls were kept at a Paris museum for 128 years before being returned to Madagascar. The return is viewed as a gesture of goodwill and a recognition of the importance of respecting human dignity and cultural heritage.
The handover ceremony underscores the complex history between France and Madagascar, as well as the ongoing efforts to address the legacy of colonialism.
As Mara noted, the taking of the skulls “has been, for more than a century, 128 years, an open wound in the heart of our island.”
Video from the event showed three boxes draped in traditional cloth being carried in a solemn procession to the handover ceremony in the* ornate surroundings of France’s Culture Ministry.
A joint scientific committee confirmed that the skulls belonged to the Sakalava people, but stated that it could only “presume” that one of them belonged to King Toera, Dati said.
The event marked the first restitution of human remains since France passed a law facilitating the return of such artefacts in 2023.
With a third of the 30,000 specimens at Paris’s Musee de l’Homme being skulls and skeletons from around the world, countries including Australia and Argentina have filed their own restitution requests for the return of ancestral remains.
During a visit in April to the Madagascan capital, Antananarivo, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of seeking “forgiveness” for France’s “bloody and tragic” colonisation of Madagascar, which declared independence in 1960 after more than 60 years of colonial rule.
The skulls are set to return to the Indian Ocean island on Sunday, where they will be buried.
