A certain auction house in England displayed ancestral skulls, shrunken heads, and other human remains for sale, but not for long.
Known as the 'The Curious Collector Sale,' the Swan Auction House located in Oxfordshire decided to remove its collection after receiving public backlash.
Screenshot from Nagaland Tribune's Official News
Auction House's Collection of Human Remains
According to CNN, among the items pulled out from sale are over two dozen lots that include shrunken heads from the 18th century, called Tsantsa. Formerly belonging to Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, it could've sold for $26,000-$33,000 (£20,000-£25,000).
Additionally, the ancestral skulls that were about to be put on sale came from the Solomon Islands, specifically from the Fon tribe in Benin, and Congo.
However, it was the skull of a 19th-century horned Naga that took down the collection for good. Chief Minister of Nagaland, India, Nelphiu Rio, criticized the display and urged the country's External Affairs Minister to stop the sale and project the remains of their people.
As reported by the Times of India, Rio received information from the FNR or Forum for Naga Reconciliation, who also condemned the sale and called it "inhumane and violent" by treating indigenous ancestral remains as collector's items.
FNR added that, if continued, the auction house would've set an example for others to continue the dehumanization and colonial violence against the Naga people
This is not the Auction house's first time receiving backlash for its collections because the same thing happened in 2020, but later removed its collection of shrunken heads as part of its decolonization process. This made them subject to a three-year review of its displays to address ethical concerns.
So far, the auction house has removed 120 objects that contain human remains, along with 71 other related artifacts, from its 500,000+ collection.
