France is returning to New Zealand the shrunken tattooed head of a Maori warrior, which has been kept in a French museum for more than a century.
The head is a relic of the ancient practice of mummification of Maoris killed in battle. It was taken away by explorers and eventually sold to the Museum of Rouen, where it has been housed since 1875.
Museum officials handed the relic over on Monday, packed in a box and covered with a black cloth.
Before the mummified head’s long voyage home, Maori elders performed traditional rites, chants and prayers at Rouen’s town hall to honor the fallen warrior.
Michelle Hippolite, the Maori director of the Te Papa national museum in Wellington, New Zealand said the head may have been a curiosity for people to enjoy, but that it is a Maori ancestor who is returning to his homeland.
The head, known in Maori as Toi Moko, is being returned after a four-year political struggle between France and New Zealand. Last year, the French senate passed a law allowing the return of all Maori human heads held in France, estimated to number about 15.
Rouen authorities decided to give the head back to the Maoris in 2007, but initially were overruled by the French government.
Tradition does not allow photographing the heads. A computerized image of the head from the Rouen museum depicts a scary face, masked with swirling green tattoos, crooked teeth and a gaping hole in place of one eye.
Maori warriors would tattoo their faces with elaborate geometric designs to show their rank. The heads of captured warriors were kept as war trophies, but Western explorers began collecting and trading them in the 18th century.
The interest in the decorated shrunken heads sparked a gruesome practice of killing slaves and other victims and tattooing them for the illicit trade.
Several other countries have agreed to return the Maori heads since New Zealand began its quest to retrieve them about 30 years ago.
