Madagascar on Tuesday held a solemn ceremony to receive three skulls returned by France, including one believed to belong to a Malagasy king who was beheaded by French forces during the 19th-century colonial conquest.
The remains, kept in France for 128 years, were formally handed over in Paris on August 27.
This marks the first restitution carried out under a 2023 French law enabling the repatriation of human remains taken during colonial rule.
The skulls are believed to belong to King Toera, leader of the Sakalava people, who was beheaded by French troops in 1897, and two of his warriors.
They arrived in Madagascar late Monday and were received at the airport by members of the Sakalava group dressed in traditional robes.
Held in three boxes draped with the flag of the Indian Ocean nation, the skulls were driven through the capital Antananarivo to the city’s mausoleum Tuesday, where they were received by President Andry Rajoelina and a gathering of government and Sakalava dignitaries.
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They will continue their journey by road to the west coast area of Belo Tsiribihina, about 320 kilometres (200 miles) from the capital, where they are expected to be buried later this week.
The skulls were taken to France as trophies and kept in Paris’s national history museum alongside hundreds of other remains from Madagascar, which declared independence in 1960 after more than 60 years of French colonial rule.
French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said at the Paris event that a joint scientific committee confirmed they were from the Sakalava people but said it could only “presume” that one belonged to King Toera.
France has in recent years sent back various artefacts taken during its imperial conquests, but each time required special legislation until parliament adopted the law simplifying the repatriation of human remains.