Legal Wrangle Over Chief's Skull The University of Cape Town has found itself at the centre of a legal battle over a controversial skull. The Mail and Guardian newspaper reports (4/2/00) that an Eastern Cape sangoma (healer) has taken legal action to retrieve a skull from the University that he believes is that of the 19th century Xhosa king, Hintsa. However, forensic specialist Professor Deon Knobel says the skull is that of an "old white woman" and that he is being driven "nuts" by the persistence of the sangoma, Chief Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka. Gcaleka initially was led by a vision to Scotland in 1996 where he found the skull which he claimed was the head of Hintsa, who was decapitated by British colonial troops in 1835. He brought it back to South Africa only to incur the wrath of the Xhosa royal family who accused him of being a fake and had the skull confiscated from him by Transkei police. The skull was then analysed by leading palaeoanthropologists Philip Tobias and Alan Morris who declared that itl was probably that of a "woman, most consistent with native variations of the Hibernian peninsula…and it doesn't fit the African spectrum". Under South Africa's Human Tissue Act the private possession of human body parts or skeletal remains is forbidden and so the skull is being housed by UCT"s forensic medicine department where it can only be used for academic purposes. Nonetheless Chief Gcaleka is adament he wants it back so that it can be given a proper traditional burial. ©Copyright Prime Origins 2001 CONTACT BRETT HILTON-BARBER primeorigins.co.za is an iafrica.com Private Label site

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