Hundreds of Namibians have welcomed home the skulls of 20 of their ancestors that were taken to Germany for racial experiments more than a century ago.
After three years of negotiations, Germany agreed to return the skulls that were taken to German research institutions after a 1904-1907 campaign of slaughter that saw tens of thousands of Namibians killed by their colonial overlords.
The skulls of four females and 16 males from the Herero and Nama tribes, including a young boy of about three, came from Berlin’s Charite University. The heads had been removed from their bodies and preserved in formaldehyde intact with faces, skin and hair.
Researchers say the skulls do not show any sign of violence, and it is not clear how the people died.
Once the remains arrived in Berlin, scientists tried to prove the “racial superiority” of white Europeans over black Africans by analysing the facial features of the heads, according to Thomas Schnalke, head of Berlin Medical Historical Museum. In the 1920s, the heads were further dissected until only the skulls remained.
The skulls are “testimony to the horrors of colonialism and German cruelty against our people”, Namibian prime minister Nahas Angula said at a ceremony at Windhoek airport today. “The Namibian nation accepts these mortal remains as a symbolic closure of a tragic chapter.”
German ambassador Egon Kochanke said he welcomed home the skulls and added it was time for the two countries to move forward.
Some Herero and Nama people made it clear they are not so willing to forget the past and waved banners demanding reparations from Germany for what some historians call the first genocide of the 20th century. Historians say German troops killed and starved to death 60,000 of the 85,000 Herero people from 1904-07.
“We are ready for battle! We are going to fight!” Herero warriors in military uniform chanted as a leader, chest covered in animal skins, led a cleansing ceremony watched by tribal chiefs in red and yellow hats.
It is not known how many hundreds more skulls may remain in Germany.
Germany only apologised for the massacres in 2004, during ceremonies marking the centenary of the start of the Herero uprising against German colonisers. But the German government does not acknowledge that there was a genocide of the Herero in what it then called German South West Africa.
Germany also has refused Herero demands for reparations, saying it gives generous aid to Namibia’s government for all the country’s two million people.
Agencies