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

Cloak is made with about 4,000 red feathers of the scarlet ibis bird was first inventoried by Denmark in 1689, but some believe it was taken from Brazil nearly 50 years before. Photograph: Niels Erik Jehrbo | Nationalmuseet

What was meant to be an occasion for celebration for the Tupinambá de Olivença Indigenous people – the long-awaited reunion with a sacred cloak taken from Brazil more than three centuries ago – has turned into a moment of frustration.

Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum recently announced that it had received the artefact, which is more than 300 years old, from the Nationalmuseet, Denmark’s National Museum.