Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has demanded that London’s Natural History Museum return the skulls of freedom fighters killed by British colonisers.
British officials acknowledged that discussion about the repatriation of Zimbabwean human remains began last year but did not say whether or not a final decision had been made.
Mugabe said the missing skulls belonged to leaders of “the first chimurenga”, an uprising against white settlers in the late 19th century, including those of spirit mediums Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi, who were hanged from a tree in 1898.
“The first chimurenga leaders, whose heads were decapitated by the colonial occupying force, were then dispatched to England, to signify British victory over, and subjugation of, the local population,” Mugabe said this week, during a Heroes Day commemoration in Harare. “Surely, keeping decapitated heads as war trophies, in this day and age, in a national history museum, must rank among the highest forms of racist moral decadence, sadism and human insensitivity.”
Once the remains are repatriated, the 91-year-old president added, the government would consult with traditional leaders about how to bury them at sacred shrines across the country.
Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Thursday that the heads would be sent back to the country as soon as the logistical issues had been resolved.