Head of African chief returned


ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:00 a.m. July 24, 2009

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The descendants of an African chief who was hanged and decapitated by a Dutch general 171 years ago reluctantly accepted the return of his severed head yesterday, still angry over his death even as the Dutch tried to right a historic wrong.

The head of Ahanta tribe King Badu Bonsu II was discovered last year in a jar of formaldehyde at the Leiden University Medical Center's anatomical collection. The Dutch government agreed to Ghanaian demands that it be returned.

The head was taken by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in 1838 in retaliation for Bonsu's killing of two Dutch emissaries, whose heads were displayed as trophies on Bonsu's throne, said Arthur Japin, a Dutch author who discovered the king's head when he was working on a historical novel.

Union-Tribune