Liverpool University to return Inuit skulls to Greenland in decolonisation drive

The University of Liverpool is to return Inuit skulls to Greenland in an effort to address its “colonial legacy”.

A British collector took remains from Inuit tombs as anatomical “specimens” and gave them to the university in the early 20th century.

Liverpool is now in talks to repatriate the collection of 15 Inuit skulls as part of a decolonisation drive. 

Greenland is pursuing a policy of reclaiming Inuit anatomical items from museums in order to re-inter them in line with traditional burial customs. The number of Inuit remains in British museums is not known.

The University of Liverpool told the Telegraph: “As part of the university’s ongoing commitment to addressing our colonial legacy, we contacted Greenland’s National Museum and Archives about a collection of human skulls with a view to repatriation.”

It is understood that a repatriation of the 15 skulls may take place this year.

Inuit remains taken from tombs

The Inuit are an Arctic indigenous population living across Canada and Greenland, which is home to around 50,000 Inuit, and enjoys self-rule as an autonomous region under Danish sovereignty.

During the 19th and early 20th century Inuit remains were removed from tombs for scientific study. On one occasion in 1897 an Inuit man was shipped to New York for the purpose of science, before he died of tuberculosis and was dissected.

The remains were taken from rock tombs used by the Inuit during a period in which modern science and an interest in phrenology created a demand for human bone remains from different races.

The British anthropologist J Brierley, about whom little is known, toured western Greenland in 1905 and took a number of skulls from Inuit tombs, without the consent or knowledge of the local population.

In a 1906 account of his trip, he stressed how he had carefully avoided Danish graves on the island, which is governed indirectly by Denmark, in order to ensure he gathered “pure” Inuit “specimens”.

The collection of skulls was given to the University of Liverpool shortly after the trip.

Memorial site for the remains to be built

Greenland National Museum wants all Inuit remains to be returned and placed in a planned memorial site. The site has not yet been built, so the remains will first be sent to a storage facility at University of Copenhagen.

Christian Koch Madsen, deputy director of the National Museum, said there were “countless examples of Inuit human remains that have been taken out of Greenland”.

“We are working to establish a storage and memorial site for these remains that will respect the ancient burial practices of the Inuit, but until then we simply try to make sure that we have legal ownership and overview of the human remains,” he said.

“Most often the communities from where the human remains were removed do not exist any more. These communities either moved to the colonies or mission stations after 1721, or were depopulated by disease, famine.

“Since we have no records of who were buried in the pre-Christian burials and when, many times not even where, it is all but impossible to establish contact with any direct living relatives or find a suitable place to rebury them.”