Following colonial thievery, Oxford University delivers cows to Kenyans

The victims say they are grateful for the gesture but still want fair recompense.

For Maasai households in Kenya and Tanzania whose artifacts were stolen and shipped to the UK more than a century ago, Oxford University has donated 196 cows.

The Sululu and Mpaima families received 49 cows apiece from a delegation from Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Saiyalels and Mosekas received the same amount as recompense, according to local media.

The action was taken as a result of a petition Samuel Sankiriaki, a Kenyan, sent to the university in 2017 when he found a sizable collection of Maasai artifacts at the Pitt Rivers Museum.

A men’s necklace known as Enkononkoi, which is typically worn by seniors, a women’s necklace known as Emonyorit, and an Isuritia, another peculiar style of necklace, are all included in the collection.

148 Maasai artifacts from the colonial era are in the possession of Oxford University, according to Laura Van Broekhoven, head of museum studies, who stated to the media at a ceremony at Morijo-Loita in Narok County, Kenya, that just five of them were wrongfully acquired.

Broekhoven was described by K24 TV as saying, “Many of them were gifted and are okay, but some are problematic because they were never supposed to have been in the museum, and records about them were not clear on how they landed there.”

She made it clear that giving 49 cows to each of the affected families was consistent with their traditional practices.

Governor of Narok County Patrick Ntutu, meanwhile, thinks that the owners “were either killed or maimed before the ornaments were taken away from them.”

Although they expressed gratitude for the act, the Maasai families claimed that the restitution was insufficient. The families are still hoping for more adequate recompense, according to Seka ole Sululu, a spokesman for The Nation newspaper.

“We could have chosen to sue, but we chose the traditional way as we believe in reconciliation,” he stated.

Additionally, local representatives are pushing for the university to build a campus in the Loita region and to compensate by offering full scholarships to deserving students.

The Maasai people of East Africa are distinguished by their own cultural traditions and rich history. They are located in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.

The UK’s museums are under increasing pressure to return colonial-era artifacts to their individual nations of origin.

The British Museum has received requests to repatriate colonial-era ceremonial artifacts from Ghana, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.