Chile repatriates remains of Indians from Europe that were displayed in 'human zoos'

Source: Associated Press

Chile repatriates remains of Indians from Europe that were displayed in 'human zoos'
By Associated Press

5:47 p.m. EST, January 12, 2010

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The remains of five Indians from a tribe in southern Chile have been repatriated from Europe more than a century after they were taken away to be displayed as curiosities.

President Michelle Bachelet received the Kawesqar Indians with military honors Tuesday.

The bodies are being flown to the Kawesqar community on a frigid island near the southern tip of South America at ancestral hunting and fishing grounds of the once nomadic Indians.

Bachelet apologized for the complicity of Chilean authorities in a German expedition that took 11 Kawesqar in 1881 to Europe to appear what is now described as a human zoo.

The remains arriving in Chile are of five of the Indians who died in 1882 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Read more: http://www.courant.com/news/nation-world/sns-ap-lt-chile-indians-repatriated,0,6586329.story

Page last updated at 22:42 GMT, Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Chile apologises over treatment of indigenous people

Chile's president has apologised to the descendants of a group of indigenous people who were shipped to Europe in the late 19th Century and exhibited.

The remains of five Kawesqar Indians, from the country's southernmost region, were honoured in a ceremony after being flown back to the country.

Taken in 1881, they were displayed as curiosities in European cities.

President Michelle Bachelet said the government had been guilty of "neglect in the face of such abuses".

"As we near the bicentennial of our independence, we have to confront both the brightest points and the darkest moments of our history," she said in Santiago.

She said the mistreatment of the indigenous people was due to racist attitudes towards "our indigenous forefathers, whose human dignity was trampled upon".

The bones were discovered in the Swiss city of Zurich where they had been kept for more than a century.

The five, who died there - some of tuberculosis - were among a group of 11 tribespeople captured by German explorers in 1881.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8455638.stm

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Had natives from the then Congo Free State in a zoo. Of course there is the famous pygmy who was exhibited in at the bronx zoo, but in testimony to the once great human rights leadership in the US there was something of an uproar and he was released quickly.