The Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred \u201ctalking drum\u201d which was looted by French colonial troops in 1916 and taken to France, arrived back in its home village in Ivory Coast on Friday.<\/p>\n
The ceremony, on Ivory Coast\u2019s national independence day holiday, was the first time today\u2019s Ivorians were able to see it.<\/p>\n
The imposing wooden drum, more than three metres (10 feet) long and weighing 430 kilogrammes (950 pounds), was used by the Ebrie tribe to transmit messages.<\/p>\n
It was officially handed over in February and arrived back in Ivory Coast in March aboard a specially chartered plane but was not taken out of its huge wooden crate.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast had asked in late 2018 for the return of the Djidji Ayokwe among 148 works of art taken during the colonial period.<\/p>\n
It is one of hundreds of stolen artefacts Paris is preparing to send back to Africa, aided by the approval in May of a new French law.<\/p>\n
On Friday, it was carried in a military parade through the Yopougon district of Abidjan, before continuing on to the village of Adjame, where it was made.<\/p>\n
The black, white and red instrument was transported in a glass-fronted case on a large, decorated float and welcomed by Culture Minister Francoise Remarck, traditional leaders and hundreds of local residents.<\/p>\n
A dozen people performed a libation ceremony, pouring a few drops of liquid onto the ground as an offering to their ancestors.<\/p>\n
\u201cA nation cannot develop if it doesn\u2019t preserve its memory and promote its heritage,\u201d said Adjame mayor Farikou Soumahoro.<\/p>\n
He said he felt \u201cdeep emotion and great pride\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see the drum with our own eyes so we can truly believe it belongs to us,\u201d 69-year-old villager Jacqueline Akrebie told AFP.<\/p>\n
Traditional leader Cyriaque Ahoure, 63, said he had come to share a moment of \u201cgreat joy, when we remembering our ancestors\u201d.<\/p>\n
The talking drum is much more than a musical instrument. It was used by the Ebrie community to warn of danger \u2014 particularly from colonialists, call to war or summon villagers to ceremonies.<\/p>\n
It was seized by the French colonial authorities in 1916 before being shipped to Europe in 1929 and exhibited in Paris for decades.<\/p>\n
It is due to go on display at the Museum of Civilisations in Abidjan which has been specially renovated.<\/p>\n
Senegal and Benin have also asked for the repatriation of their treasures.<\/p>\n
The return of cultural artefacts taken from ex-colonies in Africa and elsewhere has become a sensitive issue, with museums, institutions and collectors in Europe and the United States facing pressure to give them back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred \u201ctalking drum\u201d which was looted by French colonial troops in 1916 and taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,522,197535],"class_list":["post-1136530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-international","tag-mna"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1136530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1136530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1136530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1136530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}