The Papuans were head hunters, the place where they thought, the spirits lived. Possessing them made them stronger and they kept the skulls of their enemies as trophies, hanging from carved wooden poles inside the men’s houses. The exhibition was used both to boast of the warrior’s feats (they had at least two names, that of the pile and that of the hunted person) and to appropriate the powers and ridicule the weakness of the decapitated. Over time, these heads that came from New Guinea ended up in the display cases of museums around the world, which are examining their conscience and wondering what to do with the human remains that populate their collections.
Three skulls from Papua New Guinea can still be seen at the Ethnological and World Cultures Museum, located in Barcelona’s Carrer Montcada. But it will be for a short time. In March they will be removed from public view and will go to the reserve to be studied and then repatriated in case they are the subject of a claim by the communities of origin. “There is a context for reflection and redefinition because sensibility has changed a lot”, points out the director of the MUEC, Carles Vicente. In recent years, museums have stopped treating human remains as cultural goods, collectibles, souvenirs or trophies from distant worlds to be considered what they really are, the remains of a dead person. “And, therefore, they must be treated with dignity and respect”, adds Vicente, who from the museum draws up an action protocol that clearly establishes the criteria to be followed, without a clear legal framework, such as the one that exists , for example, in the United Kingdom.
In any case, the code of ethics of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) states that human remains “must be presented with great tact and respecting the feelings of dignity of all peoples”. The MUEC is investigating and inventorying the human remains in the collection, the number of which – likely to grow – is around thirty-five, some from the collection of the industrialist and Catalan patron Albert Folch Rusiñol and others from excavations carried out in Catalonia that ended up in the museum “more or less incidentally” at the beginning of the 20th century, despite the fact that, as the head of collections Lluís-Josep Ramoneda clarifies, ” the majority is not exposed”.
Among those that can still be seen in the room dedicated to New Guinea are the three skulls, two from the island of Papua New Guinea and one from the area of ??Indonesia, which are part of the Folch collection, the result of the adventurous expeditions led by the industrialist and his collaborator and advisor, the sculptor Eudald Serra, all over the world. “They are the only human remains as such that we still have on display,” says the director. “Another thing is the remains (bones, teeth, hair, nails…) that were used as raw material to make objects and that either had to come from living people who gave them voluntarily or that take advantage, in the case of tibias, ribs or vertebrae of dead people”. This is the case, for example, of two pieces from Tibet, a kangling or trumpet made from a hollowed-out femur and a damaru or drum built from two crushed skulls. Instruments that the Tibetans used to celebrate life and invoke the divine spirits to feast on their own bodies, as a way of surrendering the ego. These will continue to be displayed in their showcase. At least for now.
The New Guinea skulls come from direct extractions at the place of origin, during a campaign carried out shortly before the independence of part of the island in 1975, and are in a thematic area entitled Art and war. “We withdraw them not only because they are very sensitive pieces, but also because the presentation was very incongruous. Two correspond to the ritual practice of cutting off heads, they are not just any skulls, they are the skulls of a lord whose head has been cut off, and the meaning is the mockery of the enemy to grow as a victor; however, there is a third that is not the result of violence or conflict, but corresponds to the worship of the dead, a rite of respect for the ancestors”, explains Ramoneda, who, in addition to the inconsistency of showing together in a room dedicated to the war, he wonders if it was appropriate to give so much prominence to the subject of severed heads to explain the culture of the Pacific island. “You show a spear with a stuck head and what you do is give an image of the savagery of the other which I find very disrespectful. It’s as if, to show French culture, we limited ourselves to exhibiting a guillotine”, compares, for his part, Vicente.
Following the protocol of other museums, such as the British Museum in London or the Pitt Rivers in Oxford, once inventoried, the museum will maintain an updated list of the human remains that will be available for public consultation through the web. “In these cases it is also essential to know the origin of the remains and how they were obtained, in the first place, to be able to attend with guarantees to possible claims for restitution, but the authenticity of the object must also be verified to the communities that made it, because the provenance data was often changed to give them more prestige”, says Ramoneda.
And, once removed, what should be done with the remains? “Obviously, we won’t throw them in the trash either,” replies the director. “Something will have to be done about it. Because subsequent burials, dealing with skulls… Without a doubt, on the initiative of the museum, taking it to New Guinea to be buried would be very strange. However, it must be studied and made known and I do not rule out that a possible comeback would force us to do so”.
At the moment they have not received requests to return, but a visit from the active Australian and Torres Strait Islander Studies, which has been interested in Australian Aboriginal species in its collection, whether human remains or not, to study them and, if they consider it, request their repatriation.