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Swedes hand over skulls to islanders
Source: Agencies |
November 16, 2009, Monday
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WITH a solemn ceremony in Stockholm's antiquities museum, Sweden marked the return of 22 skulls looted from a native Hawaiian community more than a century ago.
The symbolic ceremony on Saturday, attended by guests from Hawaii and the Nordic countries' own indigenous Sami population, was part of Sweden's increased efforts to return indigenous remains collected by scientists across the world.
The Swedish government in 2005 ordered its museums to search through their collections, and has since returned more than 20 human remains, mainly to Australia.
The Hawaiian skulls had been returned privately earlier so that the Hawaiian delegates could perform a ritual according to traditional customs.
Museum director Lars Amreus said he hoped the return would help "fulfill the spiritual circle" of those whose graves had been violated by the Swedish scientists.
"We know that they were collected, although by today's standards they were looted," Amreus said.
Greeting Amreus at the ceremony with the traditional nose-to-nose greeting, Hawaiian delegation head William Aila thanked the Nordic country for helping to recover the remains of their ancestors.
"I cannot adequately express the thankfulness ... for a very, very worthy endeavor, and that is to greet our ancestors and accompany them home," Aila said during the ceremony.
Five of the skulls were returned by the museum itself, while 17 came from Stockholm's medical university Karolinska Institutet. They were not on display during the ceremony.
Aila said the skulls would "be reburied in the soil of their birth" back in Hawaii.
The symbolic ceremony on Saturday, attended by guests from Hawaii and the Nordic countries' own indigenous Sami population, was part of Sweden's increased efforts to return indigenous remains collected by scientists across the world.
The Swedish government in 2005 ordered its museums to search through their collections, and has since returned more than 20 human remains, mainly to Australia.
The Hawaiian skulls had been returned privately earlier so that the Hawaiian delegates could perform a ritual according to traditional customs.
Museum director Lars Amreus said he hoped the return would help "fulfill the spiritual circle" of those whose graves had been violated by the Swedish scientists.
"We know that they were collected, although by today's standards they were looted," Amreus said.
Greeting Amreus at the ceremony with the traditional nose-to-nose greeting, Hawaiian delegation head William Aila thanked the Nordic country for helping to recover the remains of their ancestors.
"I cannot adequately express the thankfulness ... for a very, very worthy endeavor, and that is to greet our ancestors and accompany them home," Aila said during the ceremony.
Five of the skulls were returned by the museum itself, while 17 came from Stockholm's medical university Karolinska Institutet. They were not on display during the ceremony.
Aila said the skulls would "be reburied in the soil of their birth" back in Hawaii.
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