When your ancestors’ skulls are up for sale

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00:00A tribal community in northeastern India is waging a deeply personal battle.

00:10The Nagas are fighting to bring back the skulls of their ancestors home after they were put

00:16up for auction in the UK.

00:18Last month, a member of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation was horrified to find an ancestral

00:25skull from Nagaland up for auction in the UK.

00:29The horned skull was part of a curious collector sale listed alongside shrunken heads and other

00:35human remains.

00:37Valued at up to £4,000, it came from a Belgian collection.

00:43Following protests, the auction house withdrew the item.

00:46But for the Naga people, the incident reopened wounds from their colonial past, renewing

00:52calls to repatriate thousands of ancestral remains and artefacts housed in foreign museums

00:59and private collections.

01:01The British colonised Naga territories in the 19th century, often suppressing resistance

01:07with violence.

01:09Villages were burned, cultural markers erased and countless artefacts, including human remains,

01:16were taken.

01:17Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum is home to the largest Naga collection, holding

01:24more than 6,500 items, including 41 human remains.

01:30While some items were gifted or traded, scholars argue that many were taken without consent.

01:38Amid growing scrutiny, museums are rethinking their policies.

01:42Once seen as scientific curiosities, human remains are now recognised as cultural and

01:49spiritual symbols.

01:51Some institutions have started returning items to communities like the Maori of New Zealand

01:57and Aboriginal Australians.

01:59The Pitt Rivers Museum removed Naga skulls from public display in 2020, but repatriation

02:07remains complex.

02:09The Naga Forum has launched an initiative to facilitate repatriation.

02:14Anthropologists and locals are piecing together colonial records, consulting elders and spreading

02:20awareness through lectures and educational material.

02:25It is more than logistics.

02:26The Naga Forum says it is about spiritual healing and honouring ancestors.

02:32But the process itself raises difficult questions.

02:36Most Nagas today follow Christianity, but their ancestors practised animism.

02:43How should these remains be laid to rest?

02:45The community is still building consensus.

02:49The fight in Nagaland is part of a broader reckoning.

02:53Across the globe, communities are demanding justice for colonial wrongs.

02:58The question remains, how long until the world listens?