GOBLET-SHAPED DRUM
Chad
Membranophone

This is a goblet-shaped drum very common in Africa. In general it has a wooden body, a single skin and plant fibre braces. Often, as in the case of this large drum from Chad, these drums are of large dimensions and very tall and therefore have to be played in a standing position. Normally the drummer has several drummers of the same type but of different dimensions at his disposal which he uses - individually or at the same time - at different moments according to the different dances. Today, however, African artists use the large traditional drums less and less often and almost exclusively on the occasion of special events and religious ceremonies. The percussion technique relative to the large wooden drums used for the transmission of signals has been practically lost or reduced to a minimum. The last to be used for these purposes, on a large scale, were probably those which called together the WAKAMBA and KIKUYU peoples during the MAU MAU revolt in Kenya (still British at the time) in the 1950s. The large drums were also said to signal the secret meetings of the sects of the ITURI and the KIVU, which in the 1960s were strongly opposed to the government of the Congo. And there are those who maintain that today the few groups of Pigmies still left are able to communicate thanks to a secret system of signals which (evidence of much older customs) consist of simple percussion on various parts of the body with the hands. The times when a fascinated Livingstone described the large drums of the MAKOLKO or Stanley listened, in admiration, to the voice of the TAM TAM WANYMWEZI coming from the plateaux of Tanzania, are far off and have been lost forever.