Germany returns ritual items to Colombia's Kogi

At the end of October, Berlin's Prussian Cultural Institute (SPK) announced that three items used in sacred rituals are on the path to being restituted to the indigenous Kogi people of Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. The items to be returned include a staff, a basket and another woven item. All are used in sacred rituals still performed today by the Kogi.

The three items are currently at Colombia's anthropology and history institute, ICANH, on a loan basis. Research is being undertaken by Kogi representatives and in December, the formal restitution contract is set to be written up.

Back in 2023, the SPK returned two Kogi ritual masks at the request of representatives of the Indigenous organization Gonavindúa Tayrona and ICANH. The masks dated back to the 15th century and had been in the museum's possession for more than 100 years, ever since ethnologist Konrad Theodor Preuss, the curator of the forerunner of Berlin's Ethnological Museum, had bought them. Preuss had lived with the Kogi people for three months and acquired the wooden items from the son of a deceased Kogi priest in 1915.

After the masks' return over a year ago, Kogi activists requested the three additional ritual items also be returned due to their importance in spiritual ceremonies. Exactly how Preuss acquired these particular items remains unclear; he collected a small collection of Kogi objects during his time with them, of which 80 have been preserved until today.  

Around 20,000 Kogi people live in the jungle of Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, and have kept their culture alive for the last 500 years. The Kogi, who refer to themselves as Kágaba, are the largest intact tribe in Colombia and live a lifestyle highly in tune with nature.

Cooperation is key

Professor Lars-Christian Koch, director of Berlin's Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art, traveled to Colombia in October and met with Kogi leaders who had come down from the Sierra Nevada to see the items firsthand.

"It was just me and another ethnologist and two Kogi representatives sitting there and discussing the details of the items — it was a very open situation," Koch told DW. "This is the first step: to just look at the items and see what to do next."

During the meeting, the function of one of the woven, basket-like pieces came into question. It was originally thought to be a headpiece, but may actually have been used as a basket — a point Kogi activists are now researching before the official legal restitution process takes place in December.

For Koch, collaborating with Indigenous communities such as the Kogi, as well as other stakeholders, such as governments and institutions, is the first and most important step to any potential restitution situation. Without close cooperation, mistakes can easily be made, he says. "We need the perspectives of both sides. In this case, Koch explained, the museum hadn't understood how important the items were in the Kogi's spiritual rituals, which are still actively practiced today."

Colombia wants items back

Colombia has been very active lately when it comes to requesting the return of cultural items from museums and private collections around the world. The country has brought back hundreds of items in 2024 alone.

In September, Colombia repatriated 115 archaeological artifacts from private collectors in the United States. The artifacts include pre-Columbian Indigenous masks, clay figurines, and ceramic vases. Daniel Garcia-Peña, Colombia's ambassador to the US, called the return a "clear example of international cooperation" and called for other collectors to return items to Colombia to preserve the country's cultural heritage.

"The majority of the objects will stay in the collections of museums nationwide," said Elizabeth Taylor Jay, vice minister for multilateral affairs in the Colombian Foreign Ministry. "We have a protocol in place to transport these objects, to ensure their conservation and safety, as well as their preservation once in the country,” she told Colombian paper "El Tiempo."

Germany's restitution history

While the restitution of art looted by the Nazis has been a prominent topic in the past decades, Germany has also been restituting a number of other items, including those taken from former European colonies.

In 2022, several German museums, including the Humboldt Forum, joined forces to return over 1,130 items to Nigeria. The valuable items — sculptures and reliefs made of bronze and brass, as well as works made of ivory, coral and wood — were stolen from the former Kingdom of Benin by the British in a brutal punitive expedition in 1897.

Unlike high-profile restituted items like the looted Benin Bronzes, the Kogi's ritual items are said to have been legally acquired, although Koch points out that Pruess probably knew acquiring the items was ethically problematic due to their sacred status and the fact they were used in ritual ceremonies. The conditions around the supposed purchase also remain unknown.

"The Kalguakala [masks] are of total importance to us as they are sacred," Arregocés Conchacala Zalabata, a representative of the Kogi, told the Guardian in 2023. "They are not a historical artifact; they are alive. With the masks, we perform ceremonies to connect and work with the spirit of the sun, the waters, the mountains and the world's many species."

Setting the tone

Could the return of the supposedly purchased items send a message to other museums around Europe? The British Museum, for example, has long refrained from returning the "Parthenon Marbles" to Athens in part by arguing they were acquired legally in the 19th century.

Koch explains that restitution decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and always in cooperation with all partners in a given situation. "It's not something we are deciding only from here [Germany]," he points out. In the case of the Kogi items, the fact that they are still actively used in spiritual rituals means their return is more or less certain, he said.

Collaboration is key when it comes to figuring out how to untangle an item's often complicated past, Koch says. "For example, we have documents our partners don't have and they have histories we don't have. Understanding through collaboration means they're extending their perspective and we are also extending ours."

Edited by: Cristina Burack