AFTER more than a century in the hands of Scottish collectors and museums, three preserved Maori heads are to be returned to their homeland.

The Toi Moko, as the tattooed heads are known, date from the nineteenth century and could be given a traditional burial if Maori curators can link them with specific tribes.

They are being stored at Nitshill Open Museum, but will be sent home in a historic repatriation deal between Glasgow Museums and the Museum of New Zealand.

The Toi Moko, along with a leg bone alleged to be from a Maori chief killed in an eighteenth century battle, are to be sent to the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington after Glasgow City Council's repatriation group agreed there was an overwhelming moral case for the return of the objects.

The remains, acquired by Glasgow Museums last century, have never been displayed.

If Glasgow's cultural committee rubber stamps the repatriation on June 24, the remains are to be stored in a secure facility in New Zealand and will be cared for by Maori curators and ceremonial specialists.

It will be the first time remains are returned to their Maori communities by Glasgow City Council, and follows the city's high-profile return of a shirt to the native American tribe of the Lakota Sioux, of South Dakota, in 1999.

Mark O'Neill, head of Glasgow Museums, said compared to the more complicated and controversial case of the Ghost Dance Shirt, the Maori Toi Moko had been a straight-forward decision.

Toi Moko are regarded as ancestors and venerated by Maori people, who see them as a means of creating links with their cultural identity and tribal affiliation. The Te Papa Tongarewa requested the repatriation of the remains in a letter to Glasgow in April, as part of a worldwide search for Maori remains in regional museums.

''Museums are the expression of the values of our society, and although we had no legal obligation to return these items, they are very important cultural artefacts in New Zealand and there is a very important ethical concern about how human remains are treated,'' Mr O'Neill said.

''It has been about 30 or 40 years since it would have been considered morally acceptable to show humans remains to the public, and there's nothing about them that more research could have found. These are human remains from a community that is still alive and still has a cultural identity so it was a very clear decision to make.''

One of the Toi Moko was purchased in 1906 from a Mr James Cross of Liverpool.

At the time of the sale he ran a menagerie, and a relative owned a curio shop in the city where he may have found the Toi Moko. Mr Cross later became mayor of Liverpool.

The other heads were donated in the 1950s by the executor of Archibald Shanks, a chemist and amateur natural historian who bought them from a ''Blair Museum, Dalry'' in 1901.

The leg bone was given to the museum by Major Robert Walter Mellish of the 4th Scottish Rifles, from Alderney, in a large collection of Maori items donated in the 1930s. His uncle, George Mellish, lived in New Zealand from 1858 to 1881 and fought against Maoris, making him the probable collector. A label on the bone reads: ''Leg bone Maori Chief killed native fight 1790.''

Treasures returned

Edinburgh University has returned remains to the Ngarrindjeri, as well as the Kaurna people of Australia, beginning in 1991 with 330 bodies.

Aborigines say 5000 to 8000 sets of remains are held by museums in Britain, Austria, Germany and Russia.

The most famous repatriation case is of the Elgin Marbles. The sculptures were removed by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in Athens in the early nineteenth century. Greece would like them back, but the British Museum refuses.

Glasgow Museums returned a Lakota Sioux ghost dance shirt to the Sioux tribe of South Dakota, USA, in 1999.