The Return of Ngadji: A sacred drum stolen from the Pokomo people

Case Study

The Return of Ngadji: A sacred drum stolen from the Pokomo people

At a Glance

Status

Contact

Origin

Kenya, Pokomo

Researcher

William Mutta Tsaka

Belonging

Ngadji is a large drum made from the hollowed out trunk of the sacred mzinga tree, and cow hide. It was carved by notable artists in the Pokomo community, to whom the drum belongs. This belonging sits at the heart of authority, spirituality, governance and social order for the Pokomo.

Place of Origin

Hola, Tana River County, Coastal Kenya.

Significance

Ngadji was designed to emit loud and powerful reverberations, which can be heard and felt along the Tana River. Herein lay its power to immediately grab the attention of Pokomo community members, and gather them together for spiritual and traditional ceremonies. The call from Ngadji was often sounded to call people together to unify in worship. Its unique reverberations were also used to signal the enthronement of the rightful king, which symbolised the beginnings of a new leadership era.

Current Location

Ngadji is padlocked in a metal case in the large specimens storeroom of the British Museum’s Archive in London, England.

Circumstances of Removal

In 1908, six years after the confiscation of Ngadji, Sir Alfred Claud Hollis, an administrator in the then East African protectorate, donated the sacred drum to the British Museum. The drum was immediately placed in storage.

Impact of Loss

The Pokomo community has experienced cultural, spiritual and ritual losses as a result of the confiscation of Ngadji. The Kidjo council, a secret elders society who are divinely ordained to enforce the rules of Ngadji, lost their position as both the spiritual and traditional authority of the Pokomo. The community also lost the capacity to sound the call to worship together and unite. As a result many Pokomo community members no longer participate in traditional spiritual practice, many now having converted to Islam or Christianity. The confiscation of Ngadji also disrupted the succession rites and rituals of the Pokomo, as the drum can no longer be struck to announce the enthronement of a king, and by extension the beginning of a new era of leadership.

Chronology of Restitution Efforts

In 2013, Dr Makorani Mungase, a Pokomo community member residing in Liverpool, UK, confirmed that Ngadji was at the British Museum. This was not the first confirmation of Ngadji’s location at the British Museum, as demand for its return has been active since its theft in 1902. However,  Dr. Mungase was the first Pokomo community to have seen Ngadji in over 100 years. He returned to Hola in Tana River Country to share this news with the Pokomo King, Mzee (Haye) Mohammed Akare. The King then called a consultative meeting with the elders of the Gasa Council of Elders. Through this meeting they collectively decided to  give Dr. Mungase permission to pursue the restitution of Ngadji.

In 2014, the Tana River Department of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife Conservation supported the coordination of a cultural festival in Hola in Tana River County. The objective was to sensitise the Pokomo community to their cultural values, and to revitalise their traditional cultural practices; which included dances, ritual enactments and crafting. A photograph of Ngadji was displayed and the Gasa Council of Elders presented speeches to educate participants about the significance of Ngadji. As part of cultural revitalisation activities, the community also installed a new king, Dr. (Haye) Makorani Y’Didha-a-Mjidho. Dr.  Mjidho, then a lecturer at Pwani University’s School of Health and Human Sciences was enthroned as king despite the absence of the drum. After his enthronement, King (Haye) Mjidho was entrusted with the principal role of leading campaigns seeking the return of the Ngadji drum to the community.

In 2016,  Dr. Baiba Mjidho – the King’s elder brother who resides in Liverpool –  was granted permission to visit Ngadji at the British Museum; making him the second Pokomo community member to see and touch the drum in over 100 years. Dr. Baiba Mjidho placed his father’s bakora (walking stick) to reconnect Ngadji to his forefathers, and asked for reconciliation and reprieve from anguish suffered by the Pokomo community when Ngadji was captured. After mutterings that he had been denied his rightful throne, he wrote a letter to the British Museum formally demanding the return of Ngadji to the Pokomo community. The demand was denied on the basis that the British Museum Act 1963 prohibits its trustees from deaccessioning a belonging from their collection if it was made before 1850, if it has no duplicate, and if it is still deemed fit to be retained in the museum’s collection. Consequently, the British Museum then offered a temporary loan of the Ngadji drum to the Pokomo community. He vehemently rejected this offer on behalf of the Pokomo community. 

In 2019, a non-profit organisation named The Recovery of Ngadji initiative was established by Dr. Makorani Mungase and Dr. Baiba Mjidho (brother to the Pokomo King) in the United Kingdom, without the knowledge of the Pokomo community. The organisation was started with the direct intention of giving the restitution campaign of Ngadji weightier legal recognition. This also enabled Pokomo community representatives to collaborate with other like-minded restitution initiatives. It also gave their quest for the return of Ngadji strengthened negotiation powers. 

On 10 August 2019, a petition for ‘The Recovery of Ngadji’, which was addressed to the British Museum, was launched by media personality and Change.org member, Brad Torum. The petition sought to grow the network of people demanding the return of Ngadji beyond Pokomo community members. It amassed more than 300 online signatories. That same year, the Pokomo community wrote a separate letter to the British Museum demanding the return of Ngadji. To show their concerted efforts and support for the return, several members of the Gasa Council of Elders added their signatures to the letter. 

In 2020, The Recovery of Ngadji partnered with the Black Initiative Alliance; a support partnership initiative in Liverpool that brings together organisations run mainly by African professionals in the diaspora. The various member organisations are concerned with the return of African belongings from Western museums, amongst other areas of upliftment for Africans. Dr. Baiba Mjidho and Dr. Mungase believed the alliance would strengthen their restitution cause. The Gasa Council of Elders did not share these sentiments.  The lack of communication and request for consent to  establish the Recovery of Ngadji initiative and to partner with the Black Alliance Initiative raised the elders suspicious that the directors (one of whom was the King’s elder brother) had ulterior motives; the worst possible one being to retain Ngadji for themselves.

In the same year, following this fallout, the Gasa Council of Elders requested that the African Diaspora Group – a non-profit organisation group that aims to identify and restore the roots and heritage of the African diaspora community –  represent the Pokomo Community in the restitution of the Ngadji drum. An introductory letter was sent to the British Museum, outlining the group’s organisational objectives and demanding the return of the Ngadji drum to the Pokomo community. The British Museum responded by informing the African Diaspora Group that they were in an ongoing negotiation process with the Black Initiative Alliance. This despite the fact that the African Diaspora Group had documentation from the Gasa Council of Elders authorising them to take up these negotiations on behalf of the Pokomo community. The museum’s administration excused itself from the demand and asked for some time to conclude the matter with the Black Initiative Alliance before addressing another demand. The Recovery of Ngadji initiative, as a part of the Black Initiative Alliance, thus became a recognised representative negotiating party by the museum.

Following this turn of events, the Gasa Council of Elders and the African Diaspora Group enlisted the support of Honourable Dhadho, Governor of Tana River County, to spearhead the demand for the return of Ngadji with them. He accepted. This indicated that the Pokomo community, represented by the African Diaspora Group, had the full support of the local government. 

The African Diaspora Group then wrote a letter to the British Museum requesting that the negotiations with the Recovery of Ngadji initiative, by way of Black Alliance Initiative be paused until  clarity was obtained around who was authorised to negotiate the return of Ngadji. Dr. Baiba Mjidho and Dr. Mungase continuing with their own negotiations, to the exclusion of Pokomo community members further fuelled speculation that the directors of Recovery of Ngadji initiative wanted to recover Ngadji for their own personal gain. Whether the British acquiesced to this request to halt dialogues with the Black Alliance Initiative is not known.

Current Status

Contact

Although the British Museum acknowledges that Ngadji was not given willingly to them by the Pokomo community, and that the community is the rightful owner, they have yet to publicly state that they intend to return Ngadji. The sacred drum, thus,  remains in a storeroom at the British Museum, against the Pokomo community’s wishes.

Contents

William Mutta Tsaka

Case Study Researcher

William Mutta Tsaka

William Mutta Tsaka, who is a Museologist and Researcher at the National Museums of Kenya in Kilifi County, conducted the research for this case study. With more than two decades of experience in heritage management, William has extensive knowledge of the official international and national frameworks that inform restitution processes in Kenya. He has also worked extensively with local communities in Kenya’s coastal region, including the Pokomo community, and the Mijikenda community, of which he is a part.

His familiarity with traditional authorities, community members, museum professionals and the government officials in Tana River County has sensitised him to the tensions that tend to arise between and amongst these stakeholder groups regarding questions of heritage and restitution. His deep understanding of these local dynamics allowed him to hone in on the invisibilised contentions in this case that have had a major impact on the ways in which this restitution journey has progressed.

Methodology and Field Experience

William Mutta conducted desktop research to explore the existing information on the efforts to return Ngadji. It is during this process that he realised there were multiple organisations in the diaspora who are implicated in the demand for restitution. He then conducted fieldwork in Tana River County, where he engaged with key stakeholders from the Pokomo community and museums. Although they were willing to share knowledge around the history of Ngadji, and its relevance to the community, they were hesitant to speak to the ongoing restitution efforts. He later found that this reluctance stems from disputes around who has authority to speak on these matters. All queries are now directed to the reigning Pokomo King for posterity.

Although William had to arrange to meet with the Pokomo King multiple times, both telephonically and in person. However, when they did meet informally the King remained understandably wary of sharing detailed information around the restitution processes, lest it upset the already compromised dialogue with the British. This limited William’s capacity to map the restitution activities that have happened beyond the dispute that arose in 2020. 

Duration of research:

This research data was gathered as part of the first case study research cohort from August – November 2023. The information in this case study profile reflects the status of this restitution case as of November 2023.