Batá drum
A batá drum is a two-headed hourglass drum in the cult music of the Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin , which is also used in the Afro-American Santería religion in the Caribbean .
They are covered with fur on both sides. The Batá drums of the Lucumí, descendants of the Yoruba in Cuba , are particularly well known . They are mainly played at solemn ceremonies in honor of African deities, but have also been played outside of religious events since the 1950s. Gilberto Valdes, Alejandro García Caturla and other Cuban composers brought them to the symphony orchestra. Afro-Cuban jazz groups such as Irakere and Síntesis also use Batá drums.
In Cuba there are always three drums of different sizes that can be played from both sides. "Iyá" (mother), the largest and deepest drum is struck by the most experienced drummer. “Itólele” is the middle drum and “okonkolo” is the smallest drum that produces the highest pitch. They lie horizontally on the players' laps and are played with their hands.
The Batá drums are very closely related to the Santería belief and the mythology of the Yoruba . According to the Lucumí, these drums are alive and “speak” to their listeners in sounds. They believe that the drums are vessels of the divine mystery ("añá").
Special processes are used to “instill a spiritual breath” into the instruments intended for religious ceremonies during the production and processing. For example, neither fire nor heat should come to the wood in order to bend it. The "consecration" of the instruments is a ritual addressed to the god Changó with precisely defined rules. Unsanitary people are not allowed to touch the consecrated drums.
literature
- Marcos Branda-Lacerda: Cultic drum music of the Yoruba in the People's Republic of Benin. Bata-Şango and Bata-Egungun in the towns of Pobè and Sakété. ( Josef Kuckertz (Ed.): Contributions to Ethnomusicology, Volume 19) Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Karl Dieter Wagner, Hamburg, 1988
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Roberto Nodal: The Social Evolution of the Afro-Cuban Drum. In: The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 11, No. 2, autumn 1983, pp. 157-177, here p. 162