2026年9月7日 / 美国东部时间上午11:16 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/法新社
牛津大学一家博物馆已同意归还英国殖民印度时期掠走的39具人类遗骸。
该校皮特·里弗斯博物馆周一向法新社证实，正准备将从印度东北部那加族社区掠走的39具人类遗骸遣返回乡。这一决定是在大学批准了那加和解论坛（FNR）及其他团体的归还申请后作出的。
博物馆馆长劳拉·范·布罗克霍文在一份声明中对法新社表示：“这些遗骸离开故土的时间实在太久了。”
哥伦比亚广播公司新闻已向牛津大学申请进一步置评。
“对那加人而言，遣返不仅仅是让骸骨和祖先遗骸重返故土，更重要的是让记忆回归其应属之地，”那加和解论坛及其他那加组织在发给法新社的一份声明中说道。
据该博物馆介绍，相关团体最初申请归还40套人类遗骸，但校方在7月批准了其中39具的归还申请，原因是其中一具“无法明确证明属于那加族”。
博物馆表示，正“密切配合”那加社区商定遗骸移交仪式的日期，目前具体日期尚未确定。
皮特·里弗斯博物馆是全球顶尖的人类学、民族学和考古学研究机构之一，馆藏超过6000件那加族文物。
那加和解论坛成员、由两名那加学者牵头的“复原、修复与去殖民化”研究项目协调员艾伦·科尼亚克·贾米尔博士在接受《莫伦快报》采访时表示，追回文物是一个复杂的过程，并非他们当前的工作重点。
此前，该博物馆因展出著名的缩颅头及其他人类遗骸展品而面临种族主义和文化麻木的指控。2020年，作为“去殖民化”馆藏整体举措的一部分，该博物馆移除了相关展品。
范·布罗克霍文当时在一份声明中称：“我们的受众调研显示，参观者常常将博物馆展出的人类遗骸视为其他文化‘野蛮’‘原始’或‘令人毛骨悚然’的证明。这些展品非但未能让参观者更深入地理解彼此的生存方式，反而强化了违背当今博物馆价值观的种族主义和刻板印象思维。”
该博物馆最终决定移除120具人类遗骸，其中包括缩颅术制作的战利品头颅、那加族战利品人头以及一具埃及儿童木乃伊。
牛津大学与那加和解论坛达成的归还协议，是西方殖民时代获得的文物及人类遗骸遣返这一更大规模国际运动的组成部分。
今年早些时候，爱丁堡大学向美国马斯科吉族归还了6具头骨。现定居于俄克拉荷马州的马斯科吉（克里克）族原密西西比河东南部领地的原住民，目前约有10.3万人口，是美国第四大联邦认可的部落民族。
2022年，伦敦霍尼曼博物馆向尼日利亚归还了72件文物，其中包括12件贝宁青铜器。与此同时，希腊数十年来一直要求英国归还帕特农神庙大理石浮雕，称这些文物是19世纪初由驻奥斯曼帝国英国大使埃尔金勋爵掠走的。
英国方面坚称这些文物是合法获得的，历届英国政府均表示，是否归还的决定权掌握在收藏这些浮雕的大英博物馆手中。
Oxford University museum to return remains of 39 people taken during British colonial rule in India
September 7, 2026 / 11:16 AM EDT / CBS/AFP
An Oxford University museum has agreed to return the remains of 39 people who were taken during Britain’s colonial rule in India.
The university’s Pitt Rivers Museum told Agence France-Presse on Monday that it is preparing to repatriate the remains of 39 people taken from the Naga community in northeast India. The decision came after the university approved a restitution request by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) and other groups.
The remains “have been away from their homeland for far too long,” museum director Laura Van Broekhoven told AFP in a statement.
CBS News reached out to the university for further comment.
“Repatriation, for the Nagas, is not simply about bones and ancestral remains finding their way back to the land but importantly about memory returning to where it belongs,” the FNR and other Naga organizations said in a statement sent to AFP.
According to the museum, the group’s request covered 40 sets of human remains; however, the university approved the return of 39 of them in July because one “does not have a clear provenance as Naga.”
The museum said it was “working closely” with the Naga community to agree on a date for a handover ceremony, which has not yet been set.
The Pitt Rivers Museum, one of the world’s leading institutions for anthropology, ethnology and archaeology, holds over 6,000 Naga artifacts.
Dr. Ellen Konyak Jamir, an FNR member and coordinator for Recover Restore and Decolonise, a research initiative led by two Naga academics, told MorungExpress that recovering the artifacts involves a complex process and is not their current focus.
In the past, the museum has faced charges of racism and cultural insensitivity because it displayed its famous collection of shrunken heads and other human remains. In 2020, it removed the collection as part of a broader effort to “decolonize” its collections.
“Our audience research has shown that visitors often saw the museum’s displays of human remains as a testament to other cultures being ‘savage’, ‘primitive’ or ‘gruesome’,’ Van Broekhoven said in a statement at the time. “Rather than enabling our visitors to reach a deeper understanding of each other’s ways of being, the displays reinforced racist and stereotypical thinking that goes against the museum’s values today.”
The museum ultimately decided to remove 120 human remains, including the tsantsas, Naga trophy heads and an Egyptian mummy of a child.
The agreement between the university and the FNR forms part of a wider international movement to repatriate artifacts and human remains acquired by Western institutions during the colonial era.
Earlier this year, the University of Edinburgh returned the skulls of six people from the Muscogee Nation in the United States. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, now based in Oklahoma, were the people of the Southeastern territory on the Mississippi River. The nation has about 103,000 people and is the fourth largest federally recognized tribal nation in the U.S.
In 2022, London’s Horniman Museum returned 72 artifacts to Nigeria, including 12 Benin bronze artifacts. Meanwhile, Greece has for decades demanded the return from Britain of the Parthenon Marbles, saying they were looted in the early 19th century by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
London insists they were legally acquired and successive British governments have noted that the decision rests with the British Museum, where they are kept.
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