Oxford University has offered dozens of cows to Maasai families in Kenya for artefacts looted from the community during British colonial era and deposited at a museum in the institution in the UK.
The cultural objects are on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum and a Kenyan man, Samuel Sankiriaki, has petitioned the university to return them, according to Kenyan local reports.
Officials from the University of Oxford gave the Sululu, Saiyalels, Mosekas and Mpaima families 49 cows each, the reports say. Maasai community in southern Kenya is predominantly pastoralist.
A spokesman for the families told a local newspaper that they received the cows on Sunday but were still expecting adequate compensation for the cultural treasures.
'Culturally sensitive'
The gesture comes after Sankiriaki saw the artefacts during a visit at the museum five years ago.
The move by the University of Oxford is seen by some observers as an admission of responsibility in the artefacts looting matter.
Laura Van Broekhoeven, a director at Pitt Rivers Museum, is quoted as saying that only five Maasai artefacts at the institution were "identified as culturally sensitive family heirlooms."
The clamour for repatriation of artworks and cultural objects stolen from Africa during the colonial period has been gathering momentum in recent years.
In April, Finland returned sacred stones taken away by missionaries from the Ovambo people in present day Namibia.
There has also been mounting pressure for return of thousands of cultural treasures looted by British troops from the Benin Kingdom in present day Nigeria in 1897 and then auctioned off in London and bought by some European countries and institutions.
