A Path Home

Thirty-nine Naga ancestors will soon begin their journey home from Oxford to Nagaland. This is the culmination of a Naga-led process of dialogue, research and reconciliation that began in 2020, supported by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, in collaboration with the Pitt Rivers Museum, a process the Naga partners describe as not an ending but as a step on the longer path towards healing.

A Naga-led journey of return

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds the largest collection of Naga material in the world, much of it gathered by colonial administrators in the early twentieth century. Among these collections are the ancestral remains of Naga people, taken during the colonial era and held in the Museum for decades, with some ancestors on display until recently.

In 2020 the Museum removed all human remains from display. That decision, and the wider commitment to change this move signalled, opened the door to a conversation that had not been possible before. Since 2020 the Museum has worked in collaboration with Naga partners, in particular the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) and its Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) team, together with tribal Hohos, elders, churches and communities across the Naga homeland to decide how their ancestors should be cared for and returned.

The ancestors and how they came to Oxford

The first Naga ancestral remains were given to the Museum over a century ago by John Henry Hutton, a colonial administrator in the Indian Civil Service and an anthropologist. Most of the Naga ancestral remains now in the collection were brought to Oxford by Hutton and a second administrator/anthropologist, James Philip Mills between 1910 and 1940 approximately.

Their 'collecting' was not the neutral, scholarly activity the word implies. As the Museum's forthcoming research sets out, it was bound up with colonial violence; remains and objects were frequently confiscated during punitive military expeditions, rather than freely given. On the Pangsha Expedition of 1936, Mills recorded demanding heads from a village and waiting with an armed escort until they were produced, remarking that the Pitt Rivers Museum would "get some fine specimens" (Repatriation. Slowing, Caring and Witnessing: Naga human remains and the work of time Arkotong Longkumer, Dolly Kikon, Laura Van Broekhoven [in press]). Hutton and Mills reportedly displayed a "jovial competitiveness" as they seized artefacts from villages being punished for head-hunting raids. This context matters and the Naga have consistently challenged the colonial framing of these ancestors as mere 'headhunting trophies'.

The Museum's wider Naga collection numbers several thousand objects. Within it, 219 items are listed as Naga human remains: 39 ancestral human remains (primarily skulls) and 178 objects that contain, or may contain, human hair. The current return concerns the 39 ancestors.

How the process unfolded

2020 - Removed from display and the first reconnection

After the Museum's 2020 decision to take all human remains off display received global coverage in the media, the Naga anthropologist Professor Dolly Kikon (a member of Nagaland's Lotha-Naga community, now at the University of California, Santa Cruz) contacted the Museum's Director, Professor Laura Van Broekhoven. Reading about the Museum's work on critical change and radical hope, she offered to connect the Museum with the Naga Nation to work towards healing.

2020-2021 - A Naga-led process takes shape

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FNR and the Museum held a series of online conversations with Naga elders. In 2021 the FNR formed the RRaD team to carry out participatory research with Naga communities and the first Naga public lecture on repatriation and decolonisation was held in Dimapur. The FNR's role was that of a facilitator, enabling an inclusive, community-led Naga response, bridging tribal divides and making space for intergenerational reflection and a Naga philosophy of care.

March 2025 - An auction and a debate in Parliament

When an Oxfordshire auction house attempted to sell a Naga skull, the Museum and Naga partners worked together to stop the sale and Nagaland's Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio wrote publicly against it. Lord Boateng and Baroness Black subsequently led a House of Lords debate on preventing the sale and display of human body parts, a reminder of why the work extends beyond any single institution.

June 2025 - The delegation comes to Oxford

From 8-14 June 2025, the Museum hosted the first formal Naga delegation in its history, welcoming leaders and elders of several Naga tribe Hohos, together with members of the FNR and RRaD. The opening session on 9 June began with an Indigenous chant, Our Ancestor, shared by the FNR elder, Dr Visier Sanyü. The delegation was then granted access to the ancestral remains for the first time since their removal from display; Nepuni Piku invoked the Blue Sky Father and Mother Earth, announcing the delegation's presence to the ancestors and the delegates laid traditional shawls in homage.

It has been a long journey to get to this moment. We know that this week will be one where we will feel both grief and sadness when looking back on that past, and also where hope is possible as we work towards reconciliation and healing.

Professor Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum

A public session followed on 13 June in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History Lecture Theatre, with a closing ceremony of prayers and song, followed by a reception supported by the Centre for South Asian Studies at University of California, Santa Cruz. The delegation returned to Dimapur on 15 June.

June 2025 - The Naga-Oxford Declaration

On 13 June 2025, at the close of the visit, the Naga declaration presented the Naga-Oxford Declaration on Repatriation - a unanimous, intertribal statement, made in a united voice by the tribe Hohos with the FNR and RRaD. It is the founding text of the return and reads in full:

July 2026 - The University of Oxford Council decision

Following the formal claim, the University of Oxford Council, at a meeting on 13 July 2026, agreed to the return of 39 ancestral human remains, declining the return of one further remain which does not have a clear provenance as Naga. The Director confirmed the decision in writing to the FNR, expressing the hope that the work of bringing the ancestors home could now begin.

The homecoming

Following this decision, the Pitt Rivers Museum has been working closely with the Nagas to agree a date for the repatriation, when the Museum will host a Handover Ceremony marking the return of the ancestors, who will finally travel home to Nagaland. A visit by a Naga delegation is being planned to Oxford to accompany the ancestors home. The homecoming is made possible with the support of the Homebound Project.

Why the ancestors are returning: Naga voices

The reasons for return are the Naga's own. Across the process, delegates and Hoho leaders have framed the homecoming as an act of dignity, healing and decolonisation - restoring sovereign decision-making to the Naga and honouring ancestors who, in the delegation's words, have "silently proclaimed the history of the Naga" for many years.

This is not just a visit for the Naga delegation. It is an act of healing, of returning sovereign decision making and reclaiming the dignity of our ancestors and the Naga people.

Professor Dolly Kikon, University of California, Santa Cruz

Tribal leaders have stressed that the journey is one of decolonisation, as much as return. Thejao Vihienuo, President of the Angami Public Organisation, reminded the gathering that the Naga were never conquered until the British invaded in the 19th century and divided their ancestral domain and that the process would "go a long way in healing the wounds of all the people involved".

Our ancestral remains deserve a dignified homecoming... We must uphold the sacredness of human life by honouring the dead and respecting the living. While we cannot undo the past, we can learn from it.

Rev. Dr Ellen Konyak Jamir, Coordinator for Recover, Restore and Decolonise

For many delegates, the first encounter with the ancestral remains brought grief and anger together. Dr Vihuto Asumi, President of the Sumi Hoho, described being "full of emotions... very sad and the same time very angry"  but turned that feeling towards unity and healing.

They've been here in a foreign land for more than a century. We believe that their spirits are still not at rest - so by doing this, we believe it will bring spiritual healing, not only to the ancestral remains here but to everyone who died during the head-hunting days.

Dr Vihuto Asumi, President, Sumî Hoho

Delegates also spoke of recognising their own community's ancestors among the remains. A Vice-President of the Phom People's Council recalled setting out from Nagaland with "anxiety, anger and excitement" because "somebody has taken my forefathers' skulls so far away from my homeland" and identified around 21 skulls he understood to belong to the Phom, describing the Naga custom of receiving ancestors home for a proper and dignified burial. A representative from the Konyak Union noted that although the records list the Konyak in the greatest number, he could identify only two remains - one of them being the Ang (chief) of a village, whose people did not understand how his remains had come to Oxford.