Madagascar on Tuesday honored the return of three ancestral skulls taken by France more than a century ago, including one believed to be that of a decapitated Sakalava king.
The remains, kept in Paris for 128 years, were officially handed over on August 27, the first restitution under a 2023 French law designed to ease the repatriation of human remains removed during colonial rule.
Among the skulls is one thought to belong to King Toera, the Sakalava leader executed by French forces in 1897, along with those of two of his warriors.
The relics arrived in Antananarivo late Monday, greeted at the airport by Sakalava representatives in traditional attire.
Enclosed in three boxes draped with Madagascar’s national flag, the skulls were transported in procession through the capital to a mausoleum, where President Andry Rajoelina and community elders paid tribute.
From there, they are set to continue by road to Belo Tsiribihina on the west coast, nearly 320 kilometers away, where they will be laid to rest later this week.
Taken as colonial trophies, the remains were stored in Paris’s natural history museum along with hundreds of others from Madagascar, which endured French domination for over six decades before gaining independence in 1960.
Speaking at the Paris handover, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati explained that a Franco-Malagasy scientific panel had traced the remains to the Sakalava. However, she cautioned that it could only “presume” one of the skulls was King Toera’s.
France has previously returned artefacts looted during its imperial campaigns, but such gestures required exceptional legal approval until lawmakers passed last year’s statute on human remains, which streamlined the process.