128 years ago, France beheaded its king and two generals in the process of colonizing Madagascar, and placed these three heads in a French museum. On August 26, France returned the heads of the king of Madagascar and his generals to Madagascar.
On August 26, the French Ministry of Culture said it had returned three Sacramento skulls, one of which is believed to be the skull of King Toera, who was cut off by the French army in 1897, and two other skulls belonged to two generals who fought side by side with the king. France passed a law in 2023 that allowed human remains to be sent back to its country for funerals, which was the first time the law was enforced.
In the 1890s, France conquered the Kingdom of Sakarava in western Madagascar and incorporated it into the newly established French colony. The Sakarawa people are one of the oldest ethnic groups in Madagascar, with a settlement accounting for one-third of the island. French colonists invaded Madagascar in the late 19th century and clashed with the Sakarawa people. In order to conquer the Kingdom of Sakarava, France carried out bloody massacres, and King Toera and many senior officials were also killed.
The heads were kept in the collection of the French National Museum of Natural History until they were officially handed over at a ceremony held by the French Ministry of Culture on the 26th.
Fetra Rakotondrasoava, permanent secretary of Madagascar's Ministry of Culture, said on the 27th: "We welcome the return of these three heads by France, including the skull of King Toela of the Sakalawa, nearly one-third of Madagascar's population is homologous to the Sakalawa." He said, "This is not only the return of remains, but also a part of our history and memory."
At the ceremony, Madagascar's minister of communications and culture, Volamiranty Donna Mara, said that the remains of "our great King Toera" and others "are not collectibles," but "invisible, indelible ties that bind our present to our past. For 128 years, they have been absent from Madagascar, and this is especially a wound in the hearts of the Sakarawas."
Madagascar's culture ministry said the heads would be reburied.
In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron once said,"In the next five years, I hope to see conditions in place to temporarily or permanently return African cultural heritage to Africa."
He then instructed him to write a report suggesting that thousands of African artifacts looted during the colonial period be removed from the French museums and returned to the African continent.
Source: The Yankees Evening