Djidji Ayôkwé was handed to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month
A sacred artefact looted by French colonial authorities more than a century ago has been returned to Côte d’Ivoire in one of the most significant cultural restitutions to a former French colony in years.
The Djidji Ayôkwé, a talking drum confiscated in 1916 by French administrators, landed at 8.45am on Friday at the airport in Port Bouët on the outskirts of the economic capital, Abidjan. It was handed over to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month after being removed from the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum.
Aboussou Guy Mobio, the chief of the Adjamé-Bingerville community, said: “After a long stay away from this land, it is returning to its own people and it is an honour for us and a relief to welcome it,. This is the missing piece of the puzzle that is returning today … Receiving this sacred instrument is a relief, but it is also another form of connection with our ancestors who were very close to this instrument.”
Talking drums are hourglass-shaped pressure drums designed to mimic the tone, pitch and rhythm of human speech. The 4-metre Djidji Ayôkwé, which weighs 430kg, held cultural and political significance to the Ebrié people – after whom the lagoon in Abidjan is named – as a symbol of resistance. Before and during colonial times, it was used to send messages over several miles to announce deaths or celebrations – and in some cases, alert villages about coming danger. After villagers resisted forced labour on a road in one incident in 1916, colonial authorities seized it and took it away to France.
