France Returns Looted Skull Of Beheaded King Toera To Madagascar After 128 Years
France has returned three human skulls looted during the colonial era to Madagascar, including one believed to belong to King Toera, who was beheaded by French troops in 1897 and taken to Paris as a colonial trophy.
The handover ceremony, held on Tuesday at the French Ministry of Culture, marked a historic restitution after 128 years.
“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 Madagascan counterpart, Volamiranty Donna Mara, welcomed the return, stressing that, “They are not collectors’ items; they are the invisible and indelible link that unites our present to our past.”
Video from the event showed the skulls, kept in Paris for more than a century, carried in three boxes draped in traditional cloth during a solemn procession.
A joint scientific committee confirmed the remains belonged to the Sakalava people, though it could only “presume” that one was King Toera’s.
The restitution was made possible by a 2023 French law that allows the return of looted human remains. With a third of the 30,000 specimens at Paris’s Musée de l’Homme being skulls and skeletons from around the world, other nations, including Australia and Argentina, have also lodged restitution requests.
During a visit to Antananarivo in April, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the “bloody and tragic” colonisation of Madagascar and spoke of seeking forgiveness. Madagascar, which was under French rule for more than 60 years, gained independence in 1960.
The skulls are expected to arrive in Madagascar on Sunday, where they will be buried. The Madagascan government plans a tribute coinciding with the anniversary of King Toera’s execution in August 1897.
Mara said the looting had been “for more than a century, 128 years, an open wound in the heart of our island.”
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