On Thursday, the final phase of two separate Swedish restitution processes began. The 77 objects belonging to the Kallawaya people, including human remains, were retrieved from the World Culture Museum’s storage facility in Gothenburg for transport to the Archaeological Museum in La Paz.
The collection has been in Sweden since 1970, when it was purchased by the then director of the Ethnographic Museum in Gothenburg. According to the World Culture Museum, it was taken out of Bolivia illegally. In 2023, the Swedish government decided that the objects should be returned.
Britta Söderqvist, superintendent at the Swedish Museums of World Culture, is also in Lagos to sign the transfer of the 39 Benin objects that Sweden is now returning. The objects are among several thousand stolen by British forces in the late 19th century from the Edo people in the then Kingdom of Benin.
However, six of the 39 objects will remain in Sweden on a ten-year loan.
“The history of the Benin objects is closely intertwined with the colonial era and the power relations that characterized that time,” Britta Söderqvist says in a press release.
She notes that museums around the world are examining their collections in light of changing ethical perspectives.
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