Drum

The Senufo used tall drums supported on four bent legs not only as musical instruments (fig. 40) but also as a means of communication, much like a public address system. Drums, for example, were played when young men prepared the fields for planting. This laborious work was turned into a hoeing contest in which drums set the rhythm by which the men swung their hoes. Later, the drums accompanied the songs praising the champion cultivator. Drums were played at boys' and girls' initiations, to announce the death of important elders, and at funerals. Elaborately carved drums were considered prestige objects that only the best sculptors were commissioned to carve.

Four-legged drums, like the Dallas example, also contributed to Senufo women's mental health. Although women's role in society complemented that of men and the mystique of procreation gave them power, Senufo women did not have equal rights. Women belonging to the Tyekpa women's society dealt with gender conflicts and frustration by singing in a secret language that only they understood. Accompanied by drums and favoring call-and-response patterns, they raised their voices in song, daring to insult their men's physical attributes or bad behavior.(35)

The motifs carved in low relief on the cylindrical chamber are not merely decoration. They symbolize important cultural concepts. The horned face, for example (seen in profile), represents the carved face masks that junior members of the Poro society wear at funerary masquerades. Animal imagery includes a serpent being attacked by two long-billed birds, perhaps cranes or herons, and may refer to the potentially dangerous competing powers in the universe. The U-shaped form probably represents a python, which is both a symbol for the world and the primary insignia of the female Sandogo society diviners, who are able to ascertain the cause of threatening circumstances through the divining ritual. The crocodile, or giant lizard, and quadrupeds (i.e., wild animals) are symbols of threatening or destructive forces. The fetters, or forged iron manacles, symbolize the suffering Senufo ancestors endured during the Sudanese wars (Islamic jihads) of the nineteenth century and because of the forced labor the French imposed during the colonial period. A tortoise (not visible) is a divine messenger. It is also a symbol for water and, in recognition of its longevity and endurance, for health. The scalloped collar beneath the raised band encircling the drum may be purely decorative, but the inverted shapes at the bottom of the drum represent small animal horns that contained potent medicine.

The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, cat. 59, pp. 176-177.

____________________
NOTES:

35. Glaze, Anita J. “Call and Response: A Senufo Female Caryatid Drum.” In Chicago: Museum Studies (Art Institute of Chicago) 19, no. 2 (1993). p. 124.

Weeks, John H. Among the Primitive Bakongo: A Record of Thirty Years’ Close Intercourse with the Bakongo and Other Tribes of Equatorial Africa, with a Description of Their Habits, Customs and Religious Beliefs. 1914. Repr. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. pp. 105-106.

McGuire, Harriet. “Woyo Pot Lids.” African Arts 13, no. 2 (February 1980). pp. 54-56, 88.