Head to head between Madagascar and France. It has been at least twenty years since the large island in the Indian Ocean demanded the return of three Sakalave skulls, a people living in the west of the island, kept at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. Among these relics is the head of King Toera, beheaded in 1897, in Ambiky, the former royal capital of Menabe, during an attack by French colonial troops to put down a rebellion.
Klara Boyer-Rossol, African historian, was in Menabe in 2004 when she heard about the story of King Toera’s skull. At the time, it was already the subject of a restitution request from the French embassy in Tananarive. Indeed, this character is of great importance among the Sakalaves, Toera having been the last king of a dynasty dating back to the 17th century. Beyond Menabe, he has also become a symbol of Malagasy resistance to colonization, honored each year during ceremonies during which bones of his skeleton are taken out of his tomb. Except that the skull is still missing.
An investigation between Madagascar and Paris
So the researcher led the investigation to locate the king’s skull. Her investigations led her, in 2011, to the anthropology collections of the Museum of human. She was able to find the thread, thanks to the notebooks of Guillaume Grandidier, a naturalist who landed in Menabe for a scientific expedition a few months after the death of King Toera. Guillaume Grandidier had brought back to France two skulls of warriors from the region, including one whom he described simply as “an ‘illustrious’ leader”, relates Klara Boyer-Rossol. A bunch of clues lead her to think that she is really dealing with that of King Toera.
In 2018, DNA analyzes were carried out by comparing bone samples taken from the royal burial in Madagascar, and DNA taken from the skull kept at the Musée de l’Homme. Except that the DNA recovered from the bones is in too poor condition for a robust comparison with the skull. “In the current state of what we know how to do in genetics, we cannot attest that it is the skull of King Toera,” laments Christine Lefèvre, archaeologist and director of the naturalist collections at the Musée de l’Homme .
Certainly, the skull of King Toera could not be formally identified, “but Sakalave rituals recognized it as such”, and the two other skulls claimed “are those of Sakalave warriors of the resistance”, says Klara Boyer-Rossol . A joint Franco-Malagasy commission should rule soon on its fate. “The Malagasy request for restitution of the three skulls is entirely admissible,” believes the researcher.
For the skull to finally find its place of origin, it is also counting on the adoption by the French parliament on Monday of a law on the restitution to foreign states of human remains belonging to public collections.