African Drum Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation

By Zulumathabo Zulu © 2017

Dear loyal followers and readers of my writings,

I have just written a new scholarly paper African Drum Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation. This peer reviewed conference paper was delivered at Southern African Society for Education at North West University, Mafikeng in 2013 under the title African Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation. I have now re-written the paper under the new title African Drum Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation for the University of Pretoria new publication. You are encouraged to give your feedback on this paper.

Abstract

Technological Innovation using indigenous knowledge systems in Africa is almost non-existent in modern scientific and engineering literature. This apparent hiatus of African technological artefacts by the African inventors tends to make it appear as though the African natives had neither the interest nor the intellectual curiosity to solve unique problems of their society using engineering principles especially in the area of telecommunication. This paper seeks to fill that gap by providing concrete analytical accounts of technological artefacts by the African natives like the talking drum using membrane, trapezoidal and slit log drums and others designed to broadcast telegraphic information over long distances using the same principles of mathematics, physics and materials science as in modern telecommunication.

The interesting fact is that the African engineering technologists of long ago had designed a wireless telecommunication system that was ahead of its time as confirmed by European observers in their historical accounts while the colonial authorities were still using the pony express-like system as a form of long distance communication before the invention of the electric telegraph in the 1800s. This paper confirms that Africans commanded a sophisticated knowledge of the drum as well as its taxonomical functions which made it possible to broadcast drum messages over great distances and long before the advent of modern telecommunication.

Keywords: indigenous knowledge systems, African drum, African telegraphy, technological innovation, drum communication, networked drums, relay system, talking drum, abstract drum machine, relay network graph.

Introduction

The popular myth is that a drum plays a musical function which confines it to producing sounds for purposes of dance and other forms of ceremonial rendition. Scholars like (Temperley, 2000) make the vital point that to understand the role of rhythm in African music and African society, the broader perspective of the ethnomusicologist is more important as opposed to confining ourselves to the narrow analysis of music theorists (the italics are mine).

In this paper, we consider three types of drums namely (1) membrane drum, (2) trapezoidal drum and (3) slit log drum.

The Membrane Drum

The membrane drum uses an animal skin on the drumhead. The relationship between the drum and the drumhead is one to many given the fact that some drums use a single drumhead while others require two drumheads. The drum is made out of a special tree for which the engineering technologist must seek prior permissions before touching and using it due to the fact that the African natives (Zulu, 2013) believe that the tree possesses the spirit. The necessary permissions are sought from the gods of the cosmos with regards to that particular tree. After the gods of the cosmos have released the spirit of the tree to be reincarnated as a drum then another permission is sought for an animal to be offered as a sacred sacrifice to the ancestors. The spirits of the animal and the tree unite as one to produce the sacred sound that venerates the revered gods of the cosmos.

It should be noted here that the type of the animal used for the drum depends on the design purpose of the drum, the size of the drum and the spirits guiding the engineering process. The best animal is that of Tshepe (the antelope) as confirmed by my informants and Dingaka (indigenous doctoral practitioners of African medicine) but the goat is also used in a popular fashion for this purpose. More often than not, the main drumhead uses a double membrane particularly a huge drum like Igede of Nigeria, a talking drum or a medicine drum designed for therapeutic rituals. The interesting fact is that even if the drumhead is designed for a double membrane, the execution of the workmanship is so flawless that it is not possible to see that the drumhead uses a double membrane. Without disecting the drumhead, it would require a special technological device like a vibration analyzer to determine if the drum is fitted with a single or double membrane.

The African materials science knowledge is very relevant here. The African engineering scientists leverage design knowledge from their erudite ancestors who have gone before them that different animal skins produce different types of sounds depending on the skin’s material properties, mechanical properties and the sacred life of the animal with respect to the revered cosmos. This type of knowledge belongs to the modern specialized branches of solid state chemistry, solid state physics and multivariable calculus. As independent researchers who subject their ontological, epistemic, axiological and Lewa (strategic knowledge) systems to the rigour of scholarly investigation, we find that the African engineering technologists are guided and inspired by their ancestral knowledge of the cosmos wherein their ancestors trace their genesis.

The following is the table of contents of the full paper:

You can read the full paper on Academia.Edu as follows:

https://www.academia.edu/s/535f2afc1f/african-drum-telegraphy-and-indigenous-innovation