“Djidji Ayôkwé”, the speaking drum on the trail to a historic return | EUROtoday
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IHe hasn’t spoken for a very long time. Too broken, the Djidji Ayôkwé, nicknamed the speaking drum, is now not capable of produce sounds, however its restitution is not any much less impatiently awaited. In 1958, two years earlier than its independence, Côte d’Ivoire already requested the return of this object confiscated by the French military in 1919. More than a century later, the restitution course of has lastly begun. On November 18, Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, Secretary of State for La Francophonie and International Partnerships and Françoise Remarck, Minister of Culture and La Francophonie of Côte d’Ivoire, spoke on questions of cultural cooperation between France and Ivory Coast. The speaking drum, at the moment stored on the Quai Branly-Jacques-Chirac museum in Paris, was on the coronary heart of their interview.
In 2019, Ivory Coast formally requested the restitution of 148 items held in French collections. French President Emmanuel Macron dedicated, throughout the Africa-France Summit in 2021, to returning considered one of them: the well-known “Djidji Ayôkwé”. After joint work bringing collectively French and Ivorian scientists and the Atchan communities who owned this drum and its partial restoration in 2022 as a way to transport it in good circumstances, the drum sleeps within the reserves of the Quai Branly museum whereas awaiting a legislation on the restitution. The framework invoice permitting the return of works looted from former colonies has nonetheless not been mentioned and adopted, a promise made by Emmanuel Macron in 2017, in his speech in Ouagadougou, the street again is lengthy and winding .
A restitution in two levels
For the drum, after two years of ready, a transitional answer was discovered. A deposit settlement, a mortgage, permitting the switch of the Djidji Ayôkwé drum within the coming months was signed between the 2 Ministers of Culture. “In agreement with the presidents of the cultural commissions of the two assemblies, I wanted to propose a two-dimensional system, first the deposit, then the restitution. This is the process that we are embarking on together today, with the signing of the deposit agreement,” explains Rachida Dati. “This agreement provides assurance of return to Côte d’Ivoire in a relatively short time, compatible with the reopening of the Museum of Civilizations of Côte d’Ivoire,” she continues.
For the second stage, restitution, pending at some point a framework legislation, a particular legislation for Djidji Ayôkwé should be adopted by the French Parliament, as a way to droop the precept of inalienability of cultural property held in nationwide collections. In the Senate, the Culture Committee, headed by centrist senator Laurent Lafon, tabled a invoice on November 14 for the restitution of the drum. Among the senators who carry this textual content, some went to Abidjan final September. On website, they have been capable of be alerted by the Ivorian authorities in regards to the delay on this file. A delay changing into worrying earlier than the reopening of the Museum of Civilizations scheduled for the second quarter of 2025, but additionally incomprehensible once we know that the renovation work on the Museum of Civilizations of Côte d’Ivoire is half financed by the French Development Agency ( AFD). “A loan is not restitution, so the two had to move forward jointly, to be sure that the timetable was respected and so that we arrived at the definitive solution which was indeed that of restitution,” underlined Laurent Lafon .
The speaking drum, a group and resistance software
The speaking drum, even mute, retains a excessive symbolic worth. Object of communication, but additionally symbolic and religious object of the Atchans, put in alongside the Ebrié lagoon, the drum was used to warn of risks, to convene assemblies for ceremonies, festivals, or necessary decision-making. The village of Adjamé, repository of the speaking drum, was the nerve heart of the seven Atchan villages.
It grew to become an object of resistance throughout colonization. The drum then makes it attainable to warn the complete group of the arrival of French settlers by transmitting coded messages. The latter enlisted males for pressured labor, significantly for the development of roads or railways. The Bidjans, one of many 9 Ivorian clans making up the Atchans group, refused to undergo it. Eventually, the scheme is found. Confiscated in 1916, the instrument was despatched to Bingerville, the place it was uncovered to unhealthy climate within the gardens of the Governor’s Palace till 1928. The ethnologist Paul Rivet, on the head of the Trocadéro Museum, obtained from the governor of the Ivory Coast, its switch in 1929. The drum will then go into the collections of the Musée de l’Homme, earlier than arriving on the Quai Branly museum.
The instrument is imposing. With its 3.30 m size and 430 kilos, the drum was able to emitting sounds that could possibly be heard over 20 kilometers. “I admit that when we discussed the return of the drum with President Ouattara, some time ago, I did not imagine that it was immense,” confides Rachida Dati. “I better understand the transport difficulties that will arise,” she provides.
“It is a massive object, but it is fragile, because it has remained outside for more than twelve years, in the rain, the wind and the sun. It is damaged on its lower part. For its restoration, with a view to its repatriation, we involved the communities through the Ministry of Culture of Côte d’Ivoire to be able to think together a protocol on the interventions that we would do and those that we would not do on the object, since at the time it was already ultimately a common good,” explains Emmanuel Kasarhérou, president of the Quai Branly-Jacques-Chirac museum. “We worked with the Atchan community, the Bidjan people. I thank the Quai Branly museum for agreeing that the communities can see the drum before it is restored,” insists Françoise Remarck. On this event, the article might have been desecrated earlier than its restoration.
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“Through the restitution of the talking drum, a whole cooperation program was put in place and made it possible to strengthen our links, to create new opportunities for exchanges, meetings, projects, which registered in perfect coherence with the objective of telling the story of the drum to allow Côte d’Ivoire to re-appropriate this heritage and for France to continue work on its colonial past”, observes Thani Mohamed-Soilihi . “This common writing that we have put in place on the subject of restitution, I hope, will be a model which represents the quality of the relationship and the cooperation, which exists between our two countries, between Côte d’Ivoire and the France, a model that allows us to project ourselves to our youth,” provides Françoise Remarck.
In Ivory Coast, Djidji Ayôkwé can have its place on the Abidjan Museum of Civilizations, positioned within the coronary heart of the Plateau, on the traditional lands of the village of Adjamé.
https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/cote-d-ivoire-djidji-ayokwe-le-tambour-parleur-sur-la-voie-d-un-retour-historique-20-11-2024-2575902_3826.php