Why are talking drums important in West Africa?

West Africa's talking drums :

More than just a musical instrument

     Forget for the time being the present day era of IT / information technology and read the description of an incident that took place almost a century ago. A senior archeologist of The British Museum named R. Heselden was camping at a small city named Ibadan in the course of a study tour of Nigeria. One night drums were beating nearby, sufficiently loudly and intermittently to prevent him from falling asleep.For many hours that night cacophony of beating drums was followed by a brief lull of a few minutes to start all over again.

why are talking drums important in west africa?

     Next morning as Heselden came out of his tent near the excavation site, he noted that labours were talking in hushed tones and also observed much concern on their faces. On asking the foreman the reason for unusually subdued behaviour of the labours, he was told, ‘A big steamer carrying white people has sunk and many have died.’

     Heselden thought that it was an off the cuff flippant remark in otherwise sombre and serious setting. He was regularly receving bundles of newspapers from London every week by post although they happened to be four weeks old. There was not much likelihood of his labourers coming to know about some major happening taking place far away before him. But three days later he received from a colleague in Cairo, Egypt, a telegram containing among other information the news that Britain’s huge passenger steamer ‘Lusitania' had been sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by a lurking German submarine. This man-made catastrophe on May 7, 1915 had taken lives of 1,198 passengers and crew out of which 128 were American citizens. Although the First world War had flared out nearly nine months ago, this was the first incident in which a warring nation had attacked and sunk the enemy's unarmed passenger steamer. 


     The scientist in R. Heselden was puzzled and perplexed by the difference of three days between receipt of news from illiterate labourers and from the telegram from Cairo. The source of news in Africa of this most tragic catastrophe since the sinking of Titanic by an iceberg was Cairo as it had telegraphic connection with London. The distance between Cairo in Egypt and Ibadan in Nigeria is almost 5,500 kilometres with the desolate Sahara Desert situated between the two. Still, illiterate labourers of Ibadan had proved quicker messengers to Heselden than electric telegram-- simply because instead of telegraph cable they had employed wireless drum language for relaying the news! The news regarding tragic fate of ‘Lusitania’ had been transmitted in drum language. Thousands of Africans must have tightened the thongs of their talking drums and taking their drum sticks vigorously involved themselves in transmitting the news at numerous 'relay stations' all along the 5,500-kilometre distance!

     Any language can originate and grow almost automatically and two persons speaking that language can communicate their feelings and ideas to each other face to face. However, if one wants to communicate with someone situated far away then means of communication or transportation become indispensable. But the interior of most of Africa 100 kilometres from the seas shore was literally Dark Continent only one and a half century ago and means of both, communication and transportation were absent. It was more so in the vast stretches of dense tropical rain forests. However, solution to this apparently insurmountable problem of communication among people of neighbouring villages in dense rain forests was found in a large West African kingdom named Ghana. Attempts to employ sound waves to send messages over long distances ultimately culminated in the development of drum language.

Linguists have traced the evolution and development of the drum language from the 11th century. Different drumbeats or rhythms had been used by the Africans since many generations for sending out signals of danger, for celebration, for exorcising evil spirits or for challenging enemies. A certain rhythm indicated that the village was under the attack of a pride of man-eater lions while another type of rhythm gave information about the death of an aged villager. Initially the range of messages which could be sent via drum rhythms was restricted just as a newly originated language is not conducive of complex communication. However, with the passage of time it grows and becomes fit for expressing complex feelings and ideas. Although initially it was not possible to translate words of conversation into drum rhythm, in the long run the number of rhythms grew and the drum language became sufficiently sophisticated to enable people to exchange their ideas and information for a long period as if talking face to face.

European adventurers exploring Africa's dark interior in the 18th century were not aware about existence of the drum language so they used to be puzzled on reaching the next village on their itinerary to find that the villagers were already expecting their arrival. The Italian army invading Ethiopia in 1896 during the scramble of the European nations to grab colonies in Africa had more dramatic if expensive, experience of the drum language. Before the decisive battle of Adwa the defending army of the Emperor of Ethiopia would amazingly come to know about whichever tactical positions the Italian invading army used to take. Italy not only lost that battle but also had to withdraw its vanquished army from Ethiopia. Drum language had been instrumental albeit indirectly, for the resounding defeat of the Italian army. Surprisingly, Talking drums were also employed for military communications in South Africa's civil war known as Boer War of 1899-1902 between the white people—the British and the Dutch settlers of South Africa. Incidentally, the work of Mahatma Gandhi led platoon of Indian stretcher bearers in this war was appreciated by South Africa's British government.

Eventually drum language came to be used for long-distance communications more in West Africa which was under the exploitative French colonial rule. Present day countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad comprised the French West Africa. (Refer the map above). The French colonial rulers had curbed inland travel by the Africans in order to prevent them from becoming united. But people kept on using drums if not for liberty then at least for conveying happy or sad news. Continuous use of drums contributed towards making the drum language richer and richer. The drum language travelled to America with the commencement of African slave trade in the 16th century. But here white slaveowners prohibited the use of drums fearing unification and uprising of the slaves. Ultimately, existence of the drum language was confined to Africa alone.

It still exists up to an extent in the present day era of mobile phones

because the latest means of communication have not reached backward rural areas. Tropical western and central Africa is mainly rain forest region where no other medium of long-distance communication is more easily available than the drum language. Special type of drum shown in the accompanying photograph is used for sending communications. It consists of hollow wooden round frame tapering off towards the middle with skin tightly stretched across both the round ends with leather thongs. Since there are no wedges to keep the thongs tight for a given length of time, they become somewhat lose. So while the drummer beats the rounded ends with bent stick, either himself or his companion simultaneously presses the thongs. Skillful pressing of thongs is very important for conveying meaningful messages because varying pressure on the strings changes the tone of the sound and sequential changes in the tone have fixed meanings.

There is an interesting method for decoding drumbeats into meaningful messages. Barring the East African language Swahili, other languages are predominantly tonal. Meanings of words in these languages are determined by the pitch of the tone. In other words, higher or lower pitch of tone determines the specific meaning of a word. Eight languages of the western Africa have only two pitches viz. high /H and low /L, twelve languages have three pitches viz. high / H, medium /M and low /L while six languages have four pitches viz. top / T, high / H, medium / M and low / L. Besides high-low pitch, the pause between the pitches also assumes importance.

Famous European linguist G. Herzog made an in-depth study of the drum language of the West African country Liberia from both, phonetic as well as grammatical angles in the first half of the 20th century and wrote a book explaining that drum language. He has explained types of tones in the Western musical notation style. The phonetics (speech sounds) mentioned beneath the musical notations are from a Liberian language named 'Jaabo'. Let us leave musical notations and the Liberian language alone and concentrate only on English translation. (Drum language is somewhat poetic in the same way as commonplace word you' in prose becomes poetical 'Ye'). Another linguist named John F. Carrington has noted in his treatise titled 'Talking Drums of Africa' published in 1949 that the Africans do not convey messages verbatim or word for word but make them quite descriptive through elaboration. For example, even an urgent message regarding airplane crash would be broadcast thus via talking drums:

'A piece of white man's ingenuity having wings which is normally seen flying in the sky has failed to remain in the sky. It has crashed on the ground with a loud noise in the forest. The people flying in it have also crashed on the ground and died.'

All the three sentences comprising the message convey the same idea. Even if one sentence of the message relayed through the drum language is properly heard by the people in another village, they come to know about the airplane crash.

"West africa talking drums"

Sounds of drums can be heard up to a distance of 8 kilometres in a quiet environment, and the people living in another village situated within the audible distance relay it further with their own drums. Since sound waves do not take more than 25 seconds to cover the distance of 8 kilometres and in view of existence of human 'relay stations' all around, people become informed of the concerned happening within a matter of a few hours as the message gets disseminated over thousands of square kilometres area.

Although drum language has lost its monopoly as the sole medium of long distance communication, there is no serious threat to its existence yet. The new generation in Africa has started using drum as an instrument of music whereas the descendents of erstwhile African slaves in America have transformed the ubiquitous drum into the modern drum set.

Fortunately, rural Africans inhabiting tropical rain forests of the western and the central Africa have kept centuries old drum language still alive.