Brigitte Weidlich
3 July 2009
Windhoek — TRADITIONAL leaders of the Herero and Nama communities will meet soon at Mariental to discuss the way forward regarding the possible return of nearly 50 skulls of their ancestors from Germany.
The skulls are those of people who died as war prisoners a century ago on Shark Island near Lüderitz after imperial Germany had suppressed uprisings against colonial rule.
"We plan to meet early next month in August to discuss if the skulls should be put in a museum, or buried by our different groups according to traditional rites or if a monument could be erected at a place where they might all be buried eventually," Ida Hoffmann, a Member of Parliament, told The Namibian this week.
Hoffmann said the leaders would be open to proposals to have genetic samples taken from the skulls to trace possible descendants in Namibia.
"If that can be done with modern science and descendants of those who died then could be linked to the skulls, this might be a way," Hoffmann added.
German public television broadcaster ARD reported a year ago that the skulls of Herero and Nama prisoners of the 1904-1908 uprisings against imperial German rule were sent to Germany for "scientific research" by Dr Eugen Fischer.
The television programme showed some of the 47 skulls still stored at the Medical History Museum at the Charité Hospital in Berlin and at least a dozen more at Freiburg University.
ARD reporter Markus Frenzel said in his report that there may be more Herero remains in German archives.
"It is believed that a total of at least 300 Herero (and Nama) skulls were taken to Germany in the early 20th century," Frenzel said.
One of the skulls was probably that of Nama Chief Cornelius Frederick, who died as a prisoner on Shark Island.
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