Slit drum (Vanuatu)

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Slit drums from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Wooden slit drums from Vanuatu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum.JPG
Slit drums from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

In Vanuatu, a slit drum is a musical instrument that is traditionally played by men of high rank. [1]

Vanuatu Country in Oceania

Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu, is a Pacific island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 540 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.

Slit drum idiophone

A slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of the name, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit, though two and three slits occur. If the resultant tongues are different width or thicknesses, the drum will produce two different pitches. It is used throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. In Africa such drums, strategically situated for optimal acoustic transmission, have been used for long-distance communication.

Idiophone class of musical instruments

An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the instrument as a whole vibrating—without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. The early classification of Victor-Charles Mahillon called this group of instruments autophones. The most common are struck idiophones, or concussion idiophones, which are made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand or indirectly, by way of a scraping or shaking motion. Various types of bells fall into both categories. A common plucked idiophone is the Jew's harp.

Contents

In most islands of Vanuatu, the drum has little to no decoration, and is played horizontally on the ground. [2] On the island of Ambrym though, such drums stand vertically on the ground; they are decorated with one or several faces with disk eyes, representing ancestral figures, such a figure is called an slit gong or atingting kon. [1] The distinctive shape of these Ambrym drums has made them iconic of Vanuatu as a whole; they are frequently found in museums around the world, represented on Vanuatu banknotes, and featured in the tourism industry.

Ambrym Island in Malampa Province, Vanuatu

Ambrym is a volcanic island in Malampa Province in the archipelago of Vanuatu. Volcanic activity on the island includes lava lakes in two craters near the summit.

Cultural significance

Slit drum from Ambrym, Vanuatu in Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney Slit drum from Vanuatu in Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.jpg
Slit drum from Ambrym, Vanuatu in Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney

Slit drums, whether decorated or not, have a significance to Vanuatu's traditional economy and society: they can be a sign of a man's wealth and social status within the political system of graded societies. [2] [3] The drums are sometimes found at ceremonial dance grounds and other gathering places. They have been used for dance rhythms, but also for signalling purposes. [1] [4] A atingting is thought to hold spirits, some good, some bad, and are often posted upright at the perimeter of a property or outside a house as protection.

Culture of Vanuatu

This article presents an overview of the culture of Vanuatu.

Notes

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Drums in communication

Developed and used by cultures living in forested areas, drums served as an early form of long-distance communication, and were used during ceremonial and religious functions.

Music of Vanuatu

The music of Vanuatu may refer to any kind of music played in the country of Vanuatu.

Music of Samoa

Traditional Samoan musical instruments included a fala, which is a rolled-up mat beaten with sticks. It is an idiophone which often accompanied choral singing. Another idiophone, a soundingboard, sometimes accompanied the solo recitation of poetry. A conch shell was blown for signaling. Amusement for small groups and individuals in private was afforded by a jaw harp, a raft panpipe, and a nose-blown flute.

Melanesian music refers to the various musical traditions found across the vast region of Melanesia.

Igbo music

Igbo music is the music of the Igbo people, who are indigenous to the southeastern part of Nigeria. The Igbo traditionally rely heavily on percussion instruments such as the drum and the gong, which are popular because of their innate ability to provide a diverse array of tempo, sound, and pitch. Igbo music is generally lively, upbeat, and spontaneous which creates a variety of sounds that enables the Igbo people to incorporate music into almost all the facets of their daily lives. Some very popular Igbo music styles are Igbo highlife, Igbo rap, Odumodu.

The ʻōteʻa is a traditional dance from Tahiti characterized by a rapid hip-shaking motion to percussion accompaniment. The dancers, standing in several rows, may be further choreographed to execute different figures while maintaining the hip-shaking. The hip motion itself may in some choreographies be synchronized amongst multiple dancers and may be further coordinated with the accompanying percussion arrangement.

Mwotlap is an Oceanic language spoken by about 2,100 people in Vanuatu. The majority of speakers are found on the island of Motalava in the Banks Islands, with smaller communities in the islands of Ra and Vanua Lava, as well as migrant groups in the two main cities of the country, Santo and Port Vila.

Qat is the principal god in the oral mythology of the Banks Islands, a small archipelago of northern Vanuatu, Melanesia.

Baladi

Baladi can refer to an Egyptian musical style, the folk style of Egyptian bellydance, or the Masmoudi Sogheir rhythm, which is frequently used in baladi music. It is also sometimes spelled in English as 'beledi' or 'baladee'.

Maya music

The music of the ancient Mayan courts is described through native and Spanish 16th-century texts and is depicted in the art of the Classic Period. The Maya played instruments such as trumpets, flutes, whistles, and drums, and used music to accompany funerals, celebrations, and other rituals. Although no written music has survived, archaeologists have excavated musical instruments and painted and carved depictions of the ancient Maya that show how music was a complex element of societal and religious structure. Most of the music itself disappeared after the dissolution of the Maya courts following the Spanish Conquest. Some Mayan music has prevailed, however, and has been fused with Spanish influences.

Teponaztli

A teponaztli[tepoˈnast͡ɬi] is a type of slit drum used in central Mexico by the Aztecs and related cultures.

Fanla Village in Malampa Province, Vanuatu

Fanla is a small village situated in the north of Ambrym Island, in the archipelago of Vanuatu in Melanesia, in the province of Malampa. The original name of this place was Saanembur Lonbato.

The literature of Vanuatu, understood in the strict sense of written literature, began in the 1960s.

References

Alexandre François is a French linguist specialising in the description and study of the indigenous languages of Melanesia. He belongs to Lattice, a research centre of the CNRS and École Normale Supérieure dedicated to linguistics.

See also

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