France has formally handed back the skull of King Toera, a Sakalava ruler killed by French troops in 1897, in a ceremony at the culture ministry in Paris. The remains of two members of his court were also returned to Madagascar.
The skulls were taken to France at the end of the 19th century and kept in the collections of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. Tuesday’s transfer is the first carried out under a new French law designed to speed the repatriation of human remains.
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati said at the handover.
King Toera was decapitated after a French expedition moved to impose colonial control over the Menabé kingdom in western Madagascar in August 1897. Pressure from the monarch’s descendants and Madagascar’s government paved the way for the return after nearly 130 years.
DNA testing conducted several years ago did not conclusively identify the skull as Toera’s. Malagasy authorities say confirmation came through a traditional Sakalava spirit medium.
“This is a significant gesture,” Madagascar’s Culture Minister Volamiranty Donna Mara said, calling the absence of the remains “an open wound in the heart of our island” for more than a century.
France has previously returned human remains taken during the colonial era — among them those of the South African woman historically exhibited in Europe as the “Hottentot Venus.” However, Tuesday’s ceremony is the first under the recent law streamlining restitutions. The Paris museum alone is estimated to hold more than 20,000 human remains acquired from around the world for purported scientific study.