politics
Reclaiming a Drum: A Century‑Old Return to the Ivory Coast
March 13, 2026
For more than a hundred years, a giant drum that once echoed through the villages of the Ebrié people was kept far from its homeland. French soldiers seized the instrument in 1916, then shipped it to Paris where it sat on museum shelves for decades. Now the drum, known locally as Djidji Ayôkwé or