Human remains trafficked as art to New York return home to Vanuatu with help from the FBI
Five crates of human relics have been repatriated to Vanuatu after being trafficked as art to New York, ending an eight-year FBI investigation.
When a crate escorted by the FBI from New York was opened this week at the national museum of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, Kaitip Kami instantly recognized the statue inside.
It incorporated the skull of a male ancestor of the hill tribes of Malakula, his island home, said Kami, a curator at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre.
“By looking at it, I knew straight away,” he said. “I recognize it, where it belongs, up in the bush.”
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell attended a ceremony on Thursday in Port Vila, the capital, to repatriate five crates of human relics, in the biggest return of such sacred items, ending an eight-year FBI investigation.
The contents were two skulls molded with mud and three large effigies, called rambaramp, each containing the skull of a man, uniquely painted to depict the final stages of his life, Kami said.
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