French senators clear path for return of Kali'na remains to French Guiana
French senators are preparing to debate a law that will allow the remains of six Kali'na indigenous people brought to Paris to feature in a human zoo to be sent back to French Guiana, after more than 130 years in the vaults of a museum in Paris.
Pékapé, Counai, Emo-Marita, Mibipi, Makéré and Miacopo have been lying in individual grey cardboard boxes bearing their names at the Museum of Mankind in Paris since 1892.
Corinne Toka Devilliers, whose great-grandmother Moliko also appeared at a human zoo in Paris but survived the experience, told RFI she wants the remains to go home.
“Our ancestors – 33 of them – were brought to France more than 130 years ago on behalf of the Jardin d'Acclimatation [amusement park in Paris] for the colonial exhibitions," she said.
"Unfortunately, eight lost their lives in France. We have therefore asked for the six [remaining] to be returned home."
Of those eight, one is believed to have been buried in a cemetery north of the French capital, while another's body was dissected in the name of scientific research.
Six were buried in Paris and their remains later joined the archives of the Museum of Mankind.
The other 25 returned to French Guiana.
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Legal precisions
French law has made it difficult to repatriate the remains to French Guiana. French museums have had strict regulations on the objects in their collections since the rule of Napoleon between 1804 and 1815.
All pieces that enter a museum's inventory are regarded as classified, important cultural heritage and need exemptions if they are to leave public collections.
Human remains originating from other countries and dating from after the year 1500 have been returned, under a law that came into force on 26 December, 2023.
However, specific wording was required to return the Kali'na remains because that law was designed for requests made by foreign states – not by a French territory, such as French Guiana.
After two years of campaigning, politicians are now backing Devilliers' fight for their restitution.
On 13 April, Culture Minister Catherine Pégard announced that the government would support a bill in the senate – the upper house of France's parliament – to facilitate the journey back to French Guiana for the six sets of remains.
Two days later, the government announced Senator Catherine Morin-Desaillyand's bill would be fast-tracked, allowing it to be debated in a public session of the senate on 18 May.
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The text of the bill, which is being co-sponsored by Senators Max Brisson and Pierre Ouzoulias, stipulates that the remains “shall cease to form part” of the museum's collections and must be returned to French Guiana within one year for funeral purposes.
“After 133 years of waiting, this is a signal we welcome,” said Guyana MP Jean-Victor Castor. "These Kali'na women, men and children were torn from their land, taken to France and exhibited in human zoos.”
Once in French Guiana, the remains will be laid to rest at a memorial unveiled in August 2024 in Iracoubo.
Cécile Kouyouri, traditional chief of the village of Bellevue-Yanu in Iracoubo, told French news agency AFP: “This repatriation is very important because our history must not remain hidden. Our ancestors suffered just as much as the slaves, and it took a great deal of effort to ensure that this traumatic history was recognised.”
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'Anthropo-zoological exhibitions'
In 1882 and again in 1892, Kali'na and Arawak people from French Guiana were exhibited in Paris as part of ethnographic displays now recognised as part of the history of “human zoos”.
Between 1877 and 1931, some 30 "anthropo-zoological exhibitions", as they were known at the time, took place at the Jardin d'Acclimatation park in western Paris.
“The Jardin d'Acclimatation was one of the major venues where a major exhibition took place almost every year, bringing in a great deal of money,” wrote historian Pascal Blanchard, on the website of France's National Audiovisual Institute.
"Between 30,000 and 40,000 people, mostly from colonised populations, were exhibited in Europe, but also in America and Japan."
Cities including Hamburg, London, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Barcelona and Osaka staged shows in which men, women and children from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were presented as exotic beings, in environments constructed to resemble their homelands.
Blanchard wrote that these human zoos served three essential functions.
"The first was entertainment. It's a spectacle. People are shown things they wouldn't otherwise be able to see. The second is to legitimise race... to make racism popular. You see the difference. You come to see the difference. Once you believe that the other is not like you, you believe there are different races and therefore a racial hierarchy, since if there is a visitor and a visited, the visitor feels superior."
He continued: "And then the third dimension: you legitimise colonial empires. Firstly, because these exhibits were often present at major world and colonial exhibitions. Also you demonstrate that there is a civilising mission at work.”
In October 2024, Devilliers was part of a 15-member delegation that performed a shamanic ceremony over the remains in the Museum of Mankind, a stone's throw from where the Kali'na and thousands of others were put on display.
“We couldn't mourn without this crucial step with our shaman,” she told RFI. “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 calm and content'."
This story was adapted from the original version in French, with additional reporting by Arame Mbengue.