RIO AFP JANEIRO: With the beating of drums and pipes filled with medicinal herbs, the Tupinamba people of Brazil are counting down the final hours of a 335-year wait for the official return of a sacred cloak taken in colonial times.

The highly symbolic artifact, held at the National Museum of Denmark since 1689, was presented in Rio de Janeiro in a ceremony attended by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday.

The return of the ceremonial cloak is part of diplomatic efforts by Brazil’s government to recover other Indigenous objects from museums in France, Japan, and elsewhere. Measuring just under 1.8 meters high and featuring red feathers of the scarlet ibis bird, the cloak arrived back in Rio in early July, where it is being stored at the national museum.

“I felt sadness and joy. A mixture between being born and dying,” said Yakuy Tupinamba, who viewed the artifact after travelling more than 1,200 kilometers by bus from the eastern Olivenca municipality. The 64-year-old, wearing a feather headdress, is among roughly 200 Tupinambas camped in grounds near the museum, where they held a traditional vigil with maracas-filled music.

Yakuy said Europeans “put (the cloak) in a museum, as if it were a zoo, for art scholars to observe... (But) only our people communicate and engage with such a symbol.”

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2024