ROUEN, France (AP) — Chanting tribesmen have opened a signing ceremony that will see the return of the mummified and tatooed head of a New Zealand Maori after it spent 136 years in a Normandy museum.
An elaborate ceremony was being held at Rouen City Hall during Monday’s handover of the head to New Zealand diplomats.
The head is the first to be returned from of a total of 16 in France that were once displayed as exotic curiosities.
The Rouen Museum tried once before, in 2007, to return the head but was stopped at the last minute by the Culture Ministry. France considers human remains conserved in museums to be part of its cultural or scientific heritage. A law has now been passed allowing the return of the heads.
