Two masks of the indigenous community of the Kogi from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia are displayed at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Germany, on June 16, 2023 (AP)

After being held in Berlin museum collections for over 100 years, Germany repatriated two Indigenous masks to Colombia belonging to the Kogi Tribe and dating back to the 15th century.

They were returned to Colombian President Gustavo Petro by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin last week during his trip to Germany.

During the ceremony, Steinmeier said, "We know that the masks are sacred to the Kogi," referring to the Indigenous group that lives in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia, according to AP. “This restitution is part of a rethink of how we deal with our colonial past, a process that has begun in many European countries.”

According to The Art Newspaper, the Kogi masks were legally bought in 1915 from the son of a late Kogi priest by German ethnologist Konrad Theodor Preuss, the curator of an earlier Ethnological Museum in Berlin.

However, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin’s museums, claims that the masks should not have been bought due to their sacredness.

Arregocés Conchacala Zalabata, a Kogi representative, told The Guardian, “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,” Zalabata said, adding that the Kogi community intends to use the mask once received.

A repatriation campaign

Experts are warning though that the masks are deemed unsafe because a disinfectant was used on them decades ago, back in the 1940s and 50s, according to The Guardian.

The disinfectant has been banned in the European Union since then over its links to breathing problems and concerns of causing cancer.

The president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Rudolf Parzinger, told The Guardian that the two masks were “detoxified” earlier this year and can be handled without gloves or face masks, but there is still “some doubt over whether they can be directly worn in front of the face."

Germany has been on a repatriation campaign since last year.

In July last year, Germany returned 1,130 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria from the ancient Benin Kingdom during the Benin Expedition of 1897, 125 years ago. That same month, the Iraqi embassy in Berlin received 125 artifacts from the Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology at the Frei Universität (The Free University) in Berlin.