Throughout the 19th century, Europeans found it fashionable
to travel the world in search of interesting objects to take back with them.
The Pitt Rivers Museum and some other museums in Europe are now attempting to
address the troubling history of many of its artifacts. Curators are working to
identify which items should be returned to their countries of origin and are
also working to decolonise the way they present the remaining objects.
One of the most controversial objects in the collection is
the so-called shrunken heads. For decades, museums displayed these heads in a
way that reinforced racist ideas about the superiority of white people.
Visitors were encouraged to gawk at what they were led to believe were barbaric
practices of indigenous cultures, without understanding the cultural significance
behind the shrunken heads. These heads came from various parts of the world and
were made from human, monkey, or sloth skulls. It was believed that one of the
reasons for creating them was to capture the power of a person’s soul to ensure
better future harvests. In 2020, the Pitt Rivers Museum decided to remove the
shrunken heads, also known as Shuar tsantsas, from display because they felt
the way they were being presented reinforced negative stereotypes about
indigenous communities.
The museum’s collection also includes Naga skulls and other
artifacts of the Naga people. During the British colonisation of India, the
British also attempted to colonise the indigenous Naga people, who lived
between India and Myanmar. The British even attempted to get the Naga people
addicted to opium to gain control over them. It was during this time that ample
Naga artifacts were carried to the museums which are still on display. It is
uncomfortable to think of museums holding onto human remains that were never theirs
in the first place. Beyond the ethical concerns, these remains are part of the
heritage of the Naga people today, and the Nagas should be the ones to decide
what to do with their ancestors' remains.
When non-Western artifacts are displayed in museums in ways
that inaccurately suggest their cultures were bloodthirsty or savage, it shapes
the way we view those cultures, both in the past and present. It reinforces the
false narrative of Western imperialism, implying that Europe was somehow
superior to the countries it colonized and stole from. However, museums around
the world are slowly waking up to the fact that taking and keeping items from
other cultures is problematic. In 2015, the grandson of a British soldier who
looted Benin City returned two Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. In October 2020, the
French parliament voted to return 26 items, including the royal throne that had
been seized from Benin in the 19th century. Museums across Europe are gradually
realising that exhibiting items taken by force from other countries hundreds of
years ago is morally troubling. We cannot change the past, but we can change
how we engage with it in the present.
