Madagascar on Tuesday held a ceremony to receive three skulls returned by France after 128 years, including one believed to be that of King Toera, a Sakalava leader executed by French troops in 1897.
The remains, handed over in Paris on August 27 under a 2023 French law allowing the restitution of human remains taken during colonial rule, also include those of two of Toera’s warriors.
The skulls arrived in Antananarivo late Monday and were received at the airport by members of the Sakalava community dressed in traditional robes.
On Tuesday, they were taken in flag-draped boxes to the capital’s mausoleum, where President Andry Rajoelina and Sakalava leaders attended a ceremony.
The remains will be transported to Belo Tsiribihina, about 320 kilometres west of the capital, for burial later this week.
The skulls had been kept in Paris’s national history museum, along with hundreds of other Malagasy remains collected during French colonial rule.
French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said a joint scientific committee confirmed they were of Sakalava origin but could only “presume” that one belonged to King Toera.
France has recently returned several colonial-era artefacts but the 2023 law marked the first systematic framework for repatriating human remains.
