The Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred "talking drum" which was looted by French colonial troops in 1916 and taken to France, arrived back in its home village in Ivory Coast on Friday.

The ceremony, on Ivory Coast's national independence day holiday, was the first time today's Ivorians were able to see it.

The imposing wooden drum, more than three metres (10 feet) long and weighing 430 kilogrammes, was used by the Ebrie tribe to transmit messages.

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It is one of hundreds of stolen artefacts Paris is preparing to send back to Africa, aided by the approval in May of a new French law.