THE BLACKMAN. Issue #32. March 7th, 2009.

GHANA WANTS DUTCH TO RETURN TRIBAL CHIEF'S HEAD
BY TOBY STERLING

AMSTERDAM–A Dutch academic hospital acknowledged Tuesday it has the head of a 19th-century African tribal chief that Ghana wants returned for burial. The Leiden University Medical Center (PHOTO-R) had refused to comment in October when Ghana learned that the center likely had the head of Badu Bonsu II in its anatomical collection, and asked for it to be returned. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said in a note to parliament that he sympathized with Ghana's request, and the center responded on its Web site saying that it is "processing" the application for return. It stopped short of saying whether it actually plans to return the head. The centre said it would not discuss the matter further publicly. "We have a well-considered policy about our anatomic-historical collection," it said in a statement.

The existence of the head came to light when a prominent Dutch writer said on television that he had come across it, preserved with formaldehyde in a glass container, while researching a historical novel. "He's got a little ring-beard, his eyes are closed as if he's sleeping," the writer Arthur Japin said. "And my first thought was, this is not fitting."

Japin(PHOTO-L) seized the opportunity of a state visit by Ghana's President John Kufuor in October 2008 to draw attention to the matter. Eric Odoi-Anim, a minister at Ghana's embassy, said the head must be returned to the Ashanti region where Bonsu ruled. "Without burial of the head, the deceased will be hunted in the afterlife. He's incomplete,"Odoi-Anim said on the same program. "It's also a stigma on his clan, on his kinsmen, and him being a (high-ranking) chief – this is even more serious."

The Leiden medical center declined to release photographs or film "out of respect" for Bonsu's remains. The Dutch established trading and slave posts in Ghana in the late 1500s, and remained involved in the country – then known in Europe as the Gold Coast – until late in the 19th century. According to Japin, the head was taken by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in retaliation for Bonsu's killing of two Dutch emissaries, whose heads were then hung from his throne as trophies. It was not clear exactly when Bonsu was killed. Verveer was recruiting soldiers and slaves in Ashanti to serve in the East Indies in the late 1830s. The head was apparently brought to Leiden around that time at the request of a researcher who studied skull shapes.

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