Descendants of freedom fighters executed and beheaded in southern Africa by British colonial forces have asked London’s Natural History Museum and Cambridge University for help in finding the looted skulls of their ancestors.
Zimbabwean descendants of the first chimurenga The heroes, who led an uprising against British colonizers in the 1890s, have long believed that the museum and university house several of the skulls.
Eight of the descendants have now formally asked institutions to collaborate in locating the remains of six of their ancestors. They have also offered to provide DNA samples to help with the investigation.
The museum and university said in 2022 that they had not identified any remains in their collections as belonging to colonial resistance fighters, causing dismay and disbelief among their descendants and Zimbabwean officials.
In letters sent to the institutions this month, descendants said questions about the provenance of the skulls could only be resolved by establishing a working group of experts from Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom to examine disputed remains and archives in those countries.
“It is not just about the past,” the letters state. “It is about whether current institutions are willing to honestly confront colonial violence and repair its lasting damage. Until the remains of our ancestors are recovered and returned, the suffering continues.”
One of the signatories of the letter is a descendant of Chief Chingaira Makoni, who opposed British settlers seizing land for farming and mining in what is now Manicaland province in northeastern Zimbabwe. After engaging the forces of Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company at the Battles of Gwindingwi in 1896, Makoni was captured, executed by firing squad and beheaded. His skull is believed to be among those of the chimurenga Heroes later taken to England.
His descendant and current Makoni chief, Cogen Simbayi Gwasira, said: “We are very aggrieved as descendants of those ancestors by the dehumanization that took place during that period. We believe that the British, and especially the museums in England, should be honest and return the things they took.”
“If those remains are not part of us, the notion of subjugation remains in our minds. Because we feel that if we are united with our ancestors, then that chapter of colonialism is closed.”
The call comes after a freedom of information investigation by The Guardian revealed that universities, museums and town halls in the UK hold at least 11,856 human remains from Africa. The University of Cambridge has the largest number with at least 6,223 items, and the Natural History Museum has the second largest collection with at least 3,375.
Robert Mugabe, then president of Zimbabwe, demanded a decade ago that the Natural History Museum return the skulls of resistance heroes.
Museum trustees made a formal decision in November 2022 to repatriate all human remains from Zimbabwe, but in a letter sent in support of the descendants last week to culture secretary Lisa Nandy, the all-party parliamentary group for African reparations said “no discernible progress has been made in the three years since that decision.”
Dr Rudo Sithole, former executive director of the International Council of African Museums, said Zimbabwe experts did not believe the museum or the University of Cambridge had done enough research to determine whether the skulls they had in the country included those of the early chimurenga heroes.
“Because people believed for a long time that all chimurenga “The remains of the heroes were in the UK, we are now very concerned that not a single one has been recognized as being there,” he said.
Gwasira said his people were still suffering as a result of the colonial theft of their ancestors’ remains. He said that in the Shona tradition of Zimbabwe, the ancestral spirits known as vadzimu They were the spiritual conduit for prayers to Mwarior God.
“Some of our very important ancestors who had the traditional responsibility of taking our grievances to the Lord were killed, their heads were taken,” he said. “We are suffering because until those ancestors return to us we will not have access to the Lord.”
Other leaders of the top 20+ chimurenga Among them were the spiritual mediums Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi, who were hanged from a tree in 1898.
Sithole, also a former director of the Zimbabwe Natural History Museum, said the UK was lagging behind other European countries, such as France and Germany, which had funded research into the provenance of human remains taken from their former African colonies.
A spokesperson for the Natural History Museum in London said it was committed to repatriating the 11 Zimbabwean individuals in its collections and was awaiting confirmation from the Zimbabwe government on the desired next steps.
“After extensive investigation we found no evidence to suggest that the remains are of named individuals or are associated with particular historical episodes,” they said. “There are no other known or suspected Zimbabwean ancestral remains in the museum.”
A Cambridge University spokesperson said: “The vice has written to the families and descendants to acknowledge their deep grief and the enduring uncertainty they have expressed.”
They added that the chancellor had assured descendants that the Duckworth Collection, which has the largest collection of human remains at the university, did not contain those of any of the first chimurenga heroes.
The DCMS declined to comment.
A 2024 report said Cambridge’s governing council had approved a claim to repatriate the remains of the only Zimbabwean individual identified in its African collections. He added that the university was awaiting a response from the Zimbabwe government.
