By Peter Omopo
September 2, 2025
Madagascar on Tuesday held a solemn state ceremony to receive three ancestral skulls repatriated from France, 128 years after they were taken during the colonial conquest of the island nation.
The remains, believed to include that of King Toera of the Sakalava people and two of his warriors, were seized by French troops in 1897 following the monarch’s execution. Preserved in Paris as colonial war trophies, the skulls were stored in France’s national history museum until their return under a 2023 restitution law that permits the handover of human remains acquired during France’s imperial expansion.
The skulls arrived in Antananarivo late Monday and were received at the airport by Sakalava representatives in traditional attire. On Tuesday, they were paraded in a ceremonial procession through the capital, carried in boxes draped with the national flag, before being taken to the city’s mausoleum. President Andry Rajoelina, government officials, and Sakalava dignitaries attended the event.
The remains will later be transported to Belo Tsiribihina, a coastal town about 320 kilometres from the capital, where final burial rites are expected to be held this week.
At the restitution ceremony in Paris, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati confirmed that a joint scientific committee had authenticated the skulls as belonging to the Sakalava. However, she noted that researchers could only “presume” one of the skulls was King Toera’s.
The handover marks another step in France’s ongoing reckoning with its colonial past. In recent years, the country has repatriated several artefacts and human remains, but until last year, such restitutions required parliamentary approval. The 2023 law has since streamlined the process.
Despite the return, hundreds of Malagasy ancestral remains are still held in French collections, a lingering reminder of the island’s more than 60 years under French colonial rule before independence in 1960.
