‘A beacon of hope’: Indigenous people reunited with sacred cloak in Brazil

The scene resembled a funeral: seven Indigenous people, overcome with tears, gathered around a loved one resting in a coffin-like wooden box.

Instead of grief, however, it was a moment of celebration: the long-awaited reunion between the Tupinambá de Olivença people and a sacred feathered cloak that was taken from Brazil at least 335 years ago.

The relic – which the Indigenous people consider not as an object but as an ancestor – had been at Denmark’s National Museum until July, when it was sent to Rio de Janeiro.

It will be publicly unveiled at a ceremony at Brazil’s National Museum on Thursday attended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But the first private encounter between the Tupinambá of Olivença and the cloak took place on Sunday, in an intimate moment witnessed by the Guardian.

Related: Indigenous leaders frustrated despite cloak’s return to Brazil after 300 years

The reunion had been eagerly anticipated: after the cloak’s return to Brazil, the Indigenous group had complained that they were not initially given the chance to perform their reception rituals for the sacred relic, which they refer to in the same terms they would to a person.

“We spoke to him, and he responded,” said Cacique Maria Valdelice Amaral de Jesus, 62, known as Jamopoty Tupinambá.

Jamopoty said the cape had returned to resolve the numerous land disputes threatening Indigenous communities across Brazil, adding: “He said we must have our lands demarcated.”

She was joined in the temperature-controlled room by six other representatives of the Tupinambá de Olivença, who for about 20 minutes prayed and spoke to the cloak, which lay under an oxygen-free glass dome, as technicians carefully monitored the humidity.

Jamopoty’s remarks were recorded by the documentary director Carina Bini who, with the Indigenous leader’s consent, shared them with the Guardian.

“You’re lying down, but you’ll stand up. We came to visit you,” she said.

“I don’t even have words. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she said as tears ran down her face, which was painted with the red dye of annatto seeds.

Her partner, Averaldo Rosario Santos, told the cloak that its return was “a beacon of hope for all the Indigenous peoples that remain in this once-invaded Brazil”.

Tupinambá cloaks – typically made from thousands of scarlet ibis feathers – were used as ceremonial vestments by coastal Indigenous peoples, said Amy Buono, an assistant professor of art history at Chapman University.

“These capes probably functioned as supernatural skins, transferring the vital force from one living organism to another,” said Buono, who has studied this cloak and 10 others still in European museums in Denmark, Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland.

“Tupinambá capes were some of the most sought-after artefacts in the early 16th century,” she said. Several Tupinambá cloaks were worn by the courtiers during a 1599 procession at the court of the Duke of Württemberg in Stuttgart.

The newly returned cloak was first inventoried by Denmark in 1689 as part of the collection of Frederick III, possibly after it was taken from Brazil by Dutch forces, which occupied the state of Pernambuco from 1630 to 1654.

“When the cloak was taken from us, it weakened our community,” said Jamopoty.

The Tupinambá de Olivença’s fight for the cloak’s repatriation began in 2000 when it was loaned for an exhibition in São Paulo. Jamopoty’s mother, Nivalda Amaral de Jesus, who was known as Amotara, visited the exhibit and demanded its return to Brazil .

At the time, the Tupinambá were not even officially recognised as an Indigenous people – they were even described as extinct in history books.

Under pressure from Amotara (who died in 2018) and other leaders, the Tupinambá de Olivença were finally recognised in 2001 by the Brazilian government.

Eight years later, the first step was taken towards demarcating their territory – an area of 47,000 hectares spanning three municipalities in Bahia.

Since then, however, the Brazilian government has made no further progress in mapping their territory, which has led to land grabs by cocoa farmers and tourism developers.

About 200 Tupinambá de Olivença made the 1,250km journey to Rio to receive the cloak, camping near the National Museum, which is still being rebuilt after a huge fire destroyed about 85% of its collection in 2018.

The museum’s director, Alexandre Keller, said the cloak would go on display to the public when the museum reopens in April 2026. Until then, it will be available only to researchers and Indigenous people.

There is no indication that any other Tupinambá cloak will be repatriated but Buono argued that they should all return to Brazil: “These capes were collected by Europeans to be displayed as curiosities and studied for their materials.

“But for the Tupinambá these were, and continue to be, sacred, living forces. Their presence in Brazil will be an extremely important marker of communal identity and evidence for land rights and other legal matters,” she said.