Chile repatriates Indian remains from Europe

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) – The remains of five Indians from a tribe in southern Chile have been repatriated from Europe more than a century after they were taken away to be displayed as curiosities.

President Michelle Bachelet received the Kawesqar Indians with military honors Tuesday.

The bodies are being flown to the Kawesqar community on a frigid island near the southern tip of South America at ancestral hunting and fishing grounds of the once nomadic Indians.

Bachelet apologized for the complicity of Chilean authorities in a German expedition that took 11 Kawesqar in 1881 to Europe to appear what is now described as a human zoo.

The remains arriving in Chile are of five of the Indians who died in 1882 in Zurich, Switzerland.