A Sacred Drum Comes Home: Ivorian Village Receives the Djidji Ayokwe After 110 Years
A 950-pound sacred talking drum has arrived back in its home village in Ivory Coast, 110 years after French colonial troops looted it.
The Djidji Ayokwe — a sacred talking drum of the Atchan, or Ebrié, community — was officially received in Adjamé on 7 August 2026, capping a return process that began with French parliamentary authorisation in July 2025 and formal repatriation in February of this year. France's parliament had passed a law on 16 July 2025 requiring the drum's return to Côte d'Ivoire no later than 16 July 2026, the culmination of a four-year process documented by the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, where the object had been held. (Quai Branly Museum)
French colonial forces seized the drum in 1916 and took it to France, where it remained for over a century. (Daily Sabah; Al Jazeera)
Talking drums are instruments whose pitch and rhythm mimic the tonal patterns of spoken language, allowing messages to be carried across distances. For the Atchan people, the Djidji Ayokwe is not merely an instrument but a sacred object — one that carries the community's history and identity.
The drum arrived in Côte d'Ivoire on 13 March 2026, making it the first artifact sent back from France to Ivory Coast, according to Reuters. (Reuters) It was then officially presented to its depositaries — the Atchedji, also known as the Atchan or Tchaman people — at a ceremony in Adjamé on 7 August before its transfer to the National Museum of Civilizations of Côte d'Ivoire, according to the Ivorian government. (Government of Côte d'Ivoire)
Ivorian authorities described the return as a symbol of renewal, reinforced cohesion, and a "prise de conscience" — an awakening of consciousness — alongside a reclaiming of identity. (Government of Côte d'Ivoire)
The repatriation follows years of negotiation between the two countries. France formally handed over the drum on 20 February 2026. (Al Jazeera) The Quai Branly Museum, which held the object, documented the restitution as the end of a process spanning four years, from preliminary discussions to legal authorisation and physical return. (Quai Branly Museum)
For the Atchan community, the wait was measured not in parliamentary sessions but in generations. The drum that left their village in 1916 — when colonial administration was expanding across West Africa — has now come back weighing nearly half a tonne, carried by the same gravity of cultural memory that its keepers never relinquished.
