France has officially returned three human skulls, including one believed to belong to 19th-century Malagasy King Toera of the Sakalava people, to Madagascar,128 years after they were taken to France.
The restitution took place on August 26 during a ceremony at the French Ministry of Culture, marking the first implementation of a 2023 French law allowing the repatriation of human remains for funeral purposes.
The other two skulls belonged to Sakalava warriors who had fought alongside King Toera and were executed during the violent uprising against the Menabe kingdom in western Madagascar, CNN reported.
French forces had defeated the Sakalava kingdoms in the late 19th century, ultimately colonising Madagascar.
King Toera was killed and beheaded during the August 1897 massacre, with his skull subsequently taken to Paris as a trophy and housed in the National Museum of Natural History, alongside other Malagasy remains.
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” said French Culture Minister Rachida Dati.
Her Malagasy counterpart, Volamiranty Donna Mara, described the handover as a historic act that opens a new chapter of cooperation between the two nations, Al Jazeera reported.
“Their absence has been, for more than a century, 128 years, an open wound in the heart of our island,” she said.
Since assuming office in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged certain past wrongdoings by France in Africa.
During a visit to Antananarivo in April, he expressed that he was seeking “forgiveness” for France’s “bloody and tragic” colonisation of Madagascar.
Madagascar, which gained independence in 1960 after more than six decades of colonial rule, is set to receive the skulls this Sunday, when they will be laid to rest on the island.
