In a ceremony held on Friday on the Musée Quai Branly in Paris, France formally returned a drum often called the “speaking drum” or Djidji Ayôkwé, to the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. The information was reported by French newspaper Le Monde.
The ten-foot-long, 940-pound drum has a single-piece soundbox slit in half longitudinally. Extending out from the slit are two planks, one in every of which helps a carving of a leaping leopard. The field itself is adorned with carved faces and geometric patterns.
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The drum was as soon as utilized by Côte d’Ivoire’s Atchan/Ebrié individuals to transmit messages between villages many miles aside, together with warnings of impending recruitment operations by French colonial troops. It was seized by French authorities in 1916 as a means of suppressing native resistance.
Between 1916 and 1930, the drum was stored outdoors the French governor’s Ivorian residence. It was transferred to France in 1929 and housed most lately on the Musée Quai Branly, the place it lately underwent restoration.
The drum topped a listing of 148 objects that Côte d’Ivoire requested from France in 2019; the petition adopted French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 pledge to return artworks looted in Africa through the colonial period. Regardless of the president’s announcement, nonetheless, appreciable authorized obstacles to restitution exist in France, the place publicly owned belongings are thought to be inalienable possessions.
The present return comes on account of a 2025 vote by the French parliament to authorize the drum’s repatriation. A brand new invoice headed to a vote within the senate’s decrease home goals to broaden the restitution of colonial-era artifacts, avoiding the necessity to move a separate legislation for each object.
The drum shall be completely exhibited at Côte d’Ivoire’s Museum of Civilizations, the place it’s scheduled to reach in the present day.
