Imlisanen Jamir
There’s a brutal irony in the commodification of human remains. That what was once violently extracted in the name of exploration is now being peddled under the sanitized guise of “collectibles” and “antiques.” It isn’t just about a decorated Naga skull auctioned in the UK or a bone traded among collectors—it’s about the larger system that has normalized such practices. For years, private collections have flourished, fed by a colonial impulse to catalog, display, and possess the unknown. There’s a thin veneer of academic curiosity or preservation that often accompanies these collections, but scratch the surface, and you’ll see that it’s the same old desire to conquer and own.
It’s easy to be horrified when looking at skulls or other human remains in an auction house catalog. But as disturbing as that visual is, we have to grapple with the more pervasive legacy behind it: a system that values conquest over compassion and spectacle over respect. The reverberations of this legacy are felt deeply by communities like the Nagas, for whom such acts reopen historical wounds that were never properly addressed. For many, the pain is not just about the past but about an ongoing erasure of identity and agency. It’s about being continually objectified—first by colonialists, now by collectors.
There are arguments made to justify these collections. Some say that they “preserve history” or provide a “window into a culture.” But these arguments are reductive and ignore the moral core of the issue. You don’t preserve a culture by decontextualizing and displaying its remains. You don’t respect a community by possessing fragments of its ancestors. For the Nagas, as with countless other Indigenous peoples, these skulls are not objects—they are part of a spiritual continuum, connected to their past and future.
What’s needed is a shift from possession to restitution, from objectification to respect. Repatriation is a crucial step, but it’s not the end goal; it’s the beginning of a process that involves reexamining our relationships with the past, and with each other. And it’s not just a legal or political task—it’s a moral one. It’s about confronting uncomfortable truths and recognizing that history isn’t just something to be displayed or studied; it’s something that lives and breathes through those who inherit it.
In the end, the auction house’s decision to withdraw the Naga skull is only a small victory, and temporary at best. If private collectors continue to see these remains as mere items in their cabinets of curiosity, then the cycle of dehumanization remains unbroken. To break that cycle requires not just the repatriation of physical remains, but a repatriation of empathy and understanding. Because while history may be written by the victors, the future—if we want it to be any better—must be written by those willing to listen.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
