KEY POINTS:
There seemed nothing particularly unusual when the mayor of a Normandy city decided that the tattooed, mummified head of a Maori warrior should be given back to New Zealand. It would, said Pierre Albertini, be a gesture of spiritual healing and repugnance at the colonial-era trade in human artefacts. More than 30 institutions worldwide have reacted the same way since this country began seeking the return of indigenous human remains in 1992. Last year, for example, Scotland's Aberdeen University handed back nine preserved and tattooed heads of Maori warriors.
Mr Albertini's commendable undertaking has, however, been torpedoed by an intervention from Paris. France has never handed back such remains, and its Culture Ministry, backed by the verdict of an administrative court, has blocked any transfer of the toi moko gifted to the Museum of Natural History in Rouen in 1875 by a French collector.
At first, the obstacle seemed to be mainly procedural. According to the ministry, Rouen had breached a legal requirement for French public museums by failing to consult a Government scientific panel about its decision. Smoothing this over would not have been difficult had the ministry wanted the head returned to Te Papa. Increasingly, however, it is apparent the case has become part of an international tug-of-war over foreign artworks and artefacts in French museums. The Culture Ministry believes that if individual museums are allowed to act like Rouen, France could lose even more valuable artefacts from the likes of ancient Egypt or Peru.
It justifies clinging to such treasures on the basis that they are now part of France's national heritage. This is a weak, morally untenable argument that lays no store in Maori grievance over what was a grotesque trade until banned by the British in 1831. Worse still, France cannot even use the patronising arguments commonly trotted out by other museums unwilling to return artefacts.
The most notable of these institutions is the British Museum, which has refused repeatedly to return the Elgin Marbles to the Parthenon in Athens. Over the past few years, a host of treasures has been given back to Greece, including artefacts from the Acropolis that ended up in Germany and Sweden. But the British Museum has staved off the Greeks, saying it is a universal museum of human civilisation and that in Greece the marbles would be reduced to a merely national display. They would be seen by far fewer people. Furthermore, the sculptures had been looked after better in London than would have been the case in Athens.
It can hardly be said that the Maori head has been treated well by the French. Deprived utterly of historical context, it was on public display in Rouen, a provincial centre, until the museum closed in 1996. Only when curators were delving into the inventory before the museum reopened last February was the head rediscovered. The local council, which owns the institution, immediately set about doing the right thing, with support from the Ministry of Research and Higher Education in Paris. Central Government policy has, however, stopped it in its tracks.
The real purpose of the French resistance is, of course, to stop a flood of demands for the return of treasures. Encouragingly, it and nations that think the same way are increasingly isolated. A moral shift is favouring the claims of countries of origin, and repatriation is very much in vogue. In such a climate, the French should feel ashamed about clinging to the Maori head. It was not theirs in the first place, never has been theirs, never will be theirs, and should be returned immediately.
