PORT ELIZABETH, Aug 8: South Africa’s government handed over the remains of Sarah Baartman, paraded as a sexual freak in the 19th century, to her Khoisan tribal leaders in the southeastern city of Port Elizabeth on Thursday.

Her skeleton and her brain and genitalia, bottled in preserving fluid, arrived on a South African Airways flight from Cape Town at the city’s airport to a red carpet welcome, the burning of traditional incense and ululating women.

“Her journey has been a long one. I hand over her body to her people,” Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture Brigitte Mabandla said before giving Baartman’s remains, draped in a South African flag, to Khoisan chiefs.

The remains will be buried on Friday on a thorny hill near the small town of Hankey, in the southeastern Gamtoos Valley where she was born 213 years ago.

Baartman’s remains were flown back to South Africa in early May after seven years of negotiations with the government of France, where it was on display at the Museum of Mankind in Paris until 1974.

Chiefs of Baartman’s Khoisan tribe consecrated her remains last Sunday with animal skins, blood and herbs in a ceremony meant to lay her spirit to rest before her burial.

They said they were trying to restore the dignity of the woman who was put on display for six years in Britain and France because of her large posterior and died a consumptive prostitute in Paris in 1816.—AFP