Wood in African material culture

10 Wood that sings:
the slit-drum

This drum is carved from a single tree trunk. The drummer usually plays the instrument with thick sticks of hard wood. The larger the drum, the further its sound carries. Sometimes they’re played on the riverbank, as water carries sound. Slit-drums are not only used to transmit messages. Large cylindrical slit-drums are also used during celebrations, mourning periods, circumcision ceremonies, and to accompany work or to provide a rhythm for pirogue paddlers.

This drum is shaped like a stylised antelope. Antelopes are typical inhabitants of the Congolese savannah and often feature in myths and legends as exceedingly intelligent animals.
As the exclusive property of chiefs or kings these objects are symbols of social status and political power. The wood cutter carefully picks the right trunk and turns it into ‘the voice of the chief’.

Loi zoomorphic slit-drum
Lower Ubangi, (Congo), sculpted around 1895
© RMCA

Photography by Ch. Delhaise, 1913
AP.0.0.15356