France Returns Human Skulls to Madagascar After 128 Years of Massacre

France Returns Human Skulls to Madagascar After 128 Years of Massacre
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France has formally returned three human skulls to Madagascar, including one believed to belong to King Toera, who was beheaded by French colonial forces, Al Jazeera reported. The handover, which took place in Paris, marks a significant act of restitution for items looted during the colonial period. The remains had been held in a French museum for 128 years.

The skulls, which are from the Sakalava ethnic group, were formally handed over during a ceremony at the French Ministry of Culture. French troops reportedly beheaded King Toera in 1897 during a massacre, taking his skull as a trophy and placing it in Paris’s national history museum. The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, stated that the skulls entered the collections “in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence.”

The event follows French President Emmanuel Macron’s previous expression of “forgiveness” for France’s “bloody and tragic” colonization of Madagascar, which gained independence in 1960. A joint scientific committee confirmed the skulls’ origins but could only “presume” that one belonged to King Toera. The skulls are scheduled to return to Madagascar on Sunday, where they will be buried and honored in a tribute ceremony.