South Africa reburied Khoi and San remains taken for European research
South Africa reburied the remains of at least 63 Khoi and San people on Monday after repatriations from a European museum, in a case tied to the long history of Africans’ remains being taken for scientific study, according to the Associated Press. President Cyril Ramaphosa attended the reburial and said the practice was rooted in racism and helped advance claims of European racial superiority.
The repatriations were part of a wider movement in Africa to bring back remains and artifacts removed or stolen from the continent, the report said. The Khoi and San are widely acknowledged as the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa, and many were killed during colonial-era settlement and conflict.
Ramaphosa said the negotiations that led to the return of the remains followed talks between the University of Glasgow and the South African government that began in 2022. He described the repatriation as part of efforts to restore dignity for Indigenous communities.
In remarks at the ceremony, Ramaphosa said, “The sale of human remains of Indigenous peoples for study in Europe was rooted in racism and used to advance theories of European racial superiority.” He added that the remains were “dug up and turned into commodities and specimens,” then displayed “under the cold gaze of pseudoscience.”
Ramaphosa also argued that most European countries must do more to acknowledge what he described as the indignity suffered by Africans through colonialism, and he said they should consider paying reparations to former colonies. The AP report said the remains reburied on Monday had been dug up between 1868 and 1924 and donated to The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, while other remains had been kept at South Africa’s Iziko Museums since the 1920s.