Ataï’s return to New Caledonia: Reconciliation politics and the embarrassing legacy of colonial anthropology

Abstract

Abstract New Caledonia is the only French Overseas Community currently undergoing an official process of reconciliation between the French State and the indigenous minority, the Kanak people, following the mid-1980s’ unrest between the Kanaks and the Caldoches (the descendants of the French settlers). On the local level, a process of healing has unfolded between the leaders of the two estranged communities. And yet, France – namely, the successive French governments, French politicians and intellectuals – has been averse to reconciliation both as a concept and as a political process. French authorities have notably been resisting the moral pressure to present formal apologies to their former colonial subjects. This article argues that the national difficulty to come to terms with the legacy of colonization can be illustrated in New Caledonia by looking at the long amnesia over the abuses perpetrated under colonial rule and over the practices of colonial anthropology. It will focus upon the case of the remains of Kanak chief Ataï, the leader of a major rebellion against French rule in 1878. After Ataï was killed during the unrest, his severed head was shipped off to France, examined and kept in the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Ataï’s return to New Caledonia only took place on 29 August 2014. From the Kanak point of view, a long history of conflict and abuse could not come to a close without this symbolic gesture on the part of French authorities. This article addresses the circumstances that allowed Ataï’s return to his homeland. It examines the French reluctance to clearly condemn early curatorial practices associated with the repression of indigenous aspirations to freedom, and it analyses why apologies and reconciliation still present a difficulty in the French context.