Stockholm ? With a solemn ceremony in Stockholm’s antiquities museum, Sweden marked the return of 22 skulls looted from a native Hawaiian community more than a century ago.

The symbolic ceremony on Saturday — attended by guests from Hawaii and the Nordic countries’ own indigenous Sami population — was part of Sweden’s increased efforts to return indigenous remains collected by scientists across the world.

The Swedish government in 2005 ordered its museums to search through their collections, and has since returned more than 20 human remains, mainly to Australia.

The Hawaiian skulls had been returned privately earlier Saturday so that the Hawaiian delegates could perform a ritual according to traditional customs.