France to return Maori warrior heads

France has decided to return a collection of Maori warrior heads, scattered in different French museums, to their native tribes in New Zealand.

The French parliament approved on Tuesday that the tattooed, mummified heads be sent to New Zealand after centuries of being displayed as exotic oddities in Europe.

"From a ritual showing the respect of a tribe and family toward their dead, the mummified heads became the object of a particularly barbaric trade due to the curiosity of travelers and European collectors," Parliamentary Relations Minister Henri de Raincourt said while presenting the law.

New Zealand has been requesting the return of the heads since the 1980s. The new French law will apply to over a dozen Maori heads, which will be shipped to the Te Papa museum in Wellington and then handed to different tribes for burial.

This is the first time that France agrees to return an entire category of museum items, Reuters reported.

Heads of Maori warriors, which were elaborately tattooed as a sign of strength and courage, were brought to Europe and the US in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Hundreds of them still exist as part of American and European collections.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=125543§ionid=3510212.