Native Americans demand return of ancestors’ remains to French Guiana

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The remains of six Native Americans who died after being exhibited in a “human zoo” in Paris in 1892 have now been kept in the archives of a French museum for over a century. A delegation of indigenous Kali’na people from French Guiana and Suriname recently came to Paris to demand their return – but there are major legal obstacles to overcome before that can happen.

The remains of the six Kali’na have been stored in large, grey cardboard boxes at the Museum of Mankind for 132 years.

Each of them has a name card: Pékapé, Counai, Emo-Marita, Mibipi, Makéré and Miacopo. Some have photographs.

And soon, their descendants hope, they will have a dignified resting place back home.

But first they had to prepare their ancestors for the voyage through a shamanic ceremony, said Corinne Toka Devilliers, one of the 15-member delegation, whose great-grandmother Moliko was also exhibited in Paris but survived the experience.

“We couldn’t mourn without this crucial step with our shaman,” she told RFI’s Aram Mbengue.

“We had to soothe their souls, to be able to tell them: ‘We’ve come to find you, but first we wanted to talk to you, to comfort you so that you can return home calm and content’.”

Dancing with the spirits

The ceremony was held at the Museum of Mankind in the west of Paris, next to the Jardin d’Acclimatation park where Kali’na and Arawak people were exhibited in the late 19th century.

The shaman blessed the ground, since the ancestors were exhibited just nearby, Toka Devilliers said, pointing to where the glass-roofed exhibition hall used to be.