One of three skulls returned to Madagascar is believed to belong to King Toera, who was slain by French colonial forces.France has returned to Madagascar three human skulls kept at a Paris museum for 128 years, after they were looted during the colonial period, including one believed to be that of a Madagascan king decapitated by French troops.The skull, presumed to be that of King Toera, and two others from the Sakalava ethnic group, were formally handed over at a ceremony held at the French Ministry of Culture on Tuesday.French troops beheaded King Toera during a massacre of locals in 1897, with his skull then taken back to France as a trophy, and placed in Paris’s national history museum alongside hundreds of other remains from the Indian Ocean island.“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati said at the event.The French minister’s Madagascar counterpart, Volamiranty Donna Mara, praised the handover, saying the taking of the skulls “has been, for more than a century, 128 years, an open wound in the heart of our island”.“They are not collectors’ items; they are the invisible and indelible link that unites our present to our past,” Mara said.Video from the event showed three boxes draped in traditional cloth bein …
