In a ceremony held on Friday on the Musée Quai Branly in Paris, France formally returned a drum often known as 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 all which helps a carving of a leaping leopard. The field itself is adorned with carved faces and geometric patterns.
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 method of suppressing native resistance.
Between 1916 and 1930, the drum was saved exterior the French governor’s Ivorian house. It was transferred to France in 1929 and housed most just lately on the Musée Quai Branly, the place it just 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 artistic endeavors looted in Africa in the course of the colonial period. Regardless of the president’s announcement, nonetheless, appreciable authorized obstacles to restitution exist in France, the place publicly owned property are considered 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 cross a separate regulation for each object.
The drum will probably be completely exhibited at Côte d’Ivoire’s Museum of Civilizations, the place it’s scheduled to reach at the moment.
