slit-log drum

Slit-log drum tradition of the Nekgini-speaking Reite people on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea, described in Leach (2002). The instrument itself is a hollowed tree trunk struck with one wooden beater. The surrogate system is composed of a large number of individual rhythmic units (“call signs” or “signals”) that are combined to create more complex units of meaning. Individual signals include identifiers for individual initiated men and for hamlets, as well as “some ‘verbs’: come, go, sleep, bury; there are times: night, sun, morning, dusk, now, tomorrow; there are also beats for animals and foods, and for weather… for danger, for fights, and for meeting as a hamlet group” (719). Leach provides the following phrase as a challenging but possible phrase in the surrogate system: “‘the whiteman will come to eat banana in [a particular] hamlet tomorrow afternoon, as long as there is no rain’” (718). Women as well as men use the drum, and “Everyone … is able to hear their own name, and simple instructions” (719).Leach does not discuss the exact rhythms of the signals or if they have any relation to the linguistic structure of Nekgini. Content includes long-distance communication, announcements, names, and spiritual/ceremonial purposes.

Leach, J. (2002). Drum and voice: Aesthetics and social process on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8(4), 713–734. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.00130