A sacred “talking drum” known as the Djidji Ayôkwé, looted from Côte d’Ivoire by French colonial troops over a century ago, returned this month to the place where it was made. According to the Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA), the drum arrived on August 7 at its home village of Adjame, where the local community was able to see it for the first time.
The ten-foot-long, 940-pound drum has a single-piece cylindrical soundbox slit in half longitudinally. Extending out from the slit are two planks, one of which supports a carving of a jumping leopard. The box itself is decorated with carved and painted faces and geometric patterns.
The massive instrument was once used by Côte d’Ivoire’s Atchan/Ebrié people to transmit messages between villages many miles apart, including warnings of impending French recruitment operations. It was seized by colonial authorities in 1916 as a way of suppressing local resistance.
Between 1916 and 1930, the Djidji Ayôkwé was kept outside the French governor’s Ivorian home. It was transferred to France in 1929 and housed most recently at Paris’s Musée Quai Branly, where it recently underwent restoration.
The drum topped a list of 148 objects that Côte d’Ivoire requested from France in 2019; the petition followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 pledge to return works of art looted in Africa during the colonial era.
Following a 2025 vote by the French parliament to authorize its repatriation, the Djidji Ayôkwé was handed over to the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire in a ceremony at the Musée Quai Branly in February. It arrived in Côte d’Ivoire in March but had not been taken out of its crate until now.
Ensconced in a glass case mounted on a float, the drum was paraded through the Yopougon district of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s largest city, before continuing on to Adjame. There it was met by Ivorian minister of culture Francoise Remarck, along with local dignitaries and residents.
“A nation cannot develop if it doesn’t preserve its memory and promote its heritage,” Adjame mayor Farikou Soumahoro said.
“We want to see the drum with our own eyes so we can truly believe it belongs to us,” said villager Jacqueline Akrebie.
Traditional leader Cyriaque Ahoure said he had come to share a moment of “great joy, when we remember our ancestors.”
The drum will be exhibited at the Museum of Civilizations in Abidjan.
In recent years, institutions and collectors in the U.S. and Europe have faced increasing pressure to return cultural property to its original communities. In April, France passed a new law facilitating the restitution of items illegally acquired between 1815 and 1972.
