Bronze drum
Bronze drums , also kettle gongs , outdated bronze drums , English bronze kettledrums , form a group hourglass metal idiophone and cult objects, mostly from bronze made. Their common origin around the middle of the 1st millennium BC BC or earlier is believed to be in the area of what is now South China and Vietnam , from where it is believed to be associated with the Dong Son culture between the mountains of Myanmar , the islands of eastern Indonesia and in the north to Inner Mongoliahave spread. The archaeological sites and individual regions in which they are still in use today as cult objects, valuable barter objects or musical instruments are located in this area.
In terms of instruments - according to the Hornbostel-Sachs system - the bronze drums, as they have no membrane , are not " drums " but kettle gongs . A designation related to the presumed origin of the bronze drums is " Dong-Son drum ". According to size, shape and decoration, the bronze drums are divided into several types. The diameter of the one-piece cast gongs from the region of origin of the Dong Son culture is greater than their height, while the multi-part moko from the East Indonesian Alor archipelago have a slim, high body. Moko used to be used as commodity money and are still a bride price today . The largest bronze drum is known as the "Moon of Pejeng" and is located in the village of the same name on Bali . Kettle gongs that used to be used ritually (at funerals or to ascend the throne) in Indonesia are called nekara . A type common to the Karen and other ethnic groups of mainland Southeast Asia is decorated with four bronze frogs on the upper edge. Some minority peoples in Southeast China use kettle gongs called tong gu .
background
The hourglass-shaped objects are hollow bronze bodies that are placed vertically. At the top, where the diaphragm is located on drums , the hollow body is closed by a metal plate that can be decorated with engravings.
The oldest accounts of bronze drums can be found in Shi Ben , a Chinese book from the 3rd century BC. In the Chinese chronicle Hou Han Shu , from the 5th century AD, the Chinese general Ma Yuan is reported who, after the rebellion of the Trưng sisters in the 1st century AD, played bronze drums in Jiāozhǐ (in northern Vietnam ) and had them melted into horse statues. According to this, there are numerous Chinese sources reporting on bronze drums. Vietnamese scholars collected numerous legends about bronze drums in the 14th century and wrote them down in Chinese in the Viet Dien U Linh and Linh Nam Chich Quai . Later historical sources from Vietnam also report bronze drums. The bronze drums remained completely unknown in the West until the natural scientist Georg Eberhard Rumpf first brought a Karen bronze drum to Europe in 1682 and Cosimo III. de 'Medici , the Grand Duke of Tuscany .
The misleading term "bronze timpani" was first used by the sinologist JJM de Groot in 1898 in a translation from Chinese . The ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs , who, together with Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, developed the Hornbostel-Sachs systematics , a classification system for musical instruments, instead introduced the term "kettle gong" in 1915. The ethnologist and archaeologist Robert von Heine-Geldern, on the other hand, preferred “metal drums” in 1932, as the objects externally resemble fur drums. In today's specialist literature you can find both the term "bronze drum" and "kettle gong".
Large collections of bronze drums can be found in the Chinese Provincial Museum of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Vietnamese National Museum of History in Hanoi .
Bronze drums in different cultures
Dong Son culture
The Dong-Son drums are considered a model for the bronze drums in Southeast Asia. The Dong Son culture existed from around 800 BC. AD-200 in northern Vietnam and south-east China. The bronze drums spread along trade routes from Sumatra to New Guinea . A well-preserved specimen found in East Timor in 2015 weighed 80 kg and was estimated to be 2000 years old. A total of about 20 ancient dong son drums have been discovered in the Malay Archipelago . 140 antique Dong-Son drums have been found in Vietnam so far.
The Dong-Son drums have a bulbous shape and show a star-shaped engraving in the center of the "eardrum". There are also geometric patterns and depictions of soul ships with which the deceased get to the afterlife, houses, mammals, fish and people. Some specimens have four frogs on the drum, some also have a handle in the middle of the drum.
Small models of drums made of clay or bronze were used as grave goods.
Karen
The bronze drums of the Karen in the border area of Myanmar and Thailand correspond to different types of the Dong-Son drums. The Karen differentiate between the male frog drums ( hpà si ), whose “eardrum” is framed by four frog figures, and female drums without frogs. In the frog drum dance, which is practiced in the Myanmar Kayah state by various ethnic groups such as the Kayah , Yin, Baw, Padaung and Bayeh, the dancers ask for rain while the drums are beaten. Bronze drums are also played by the Karen at other ceremonies that are important for agriculture.
Moko
Mokos ( Mokkos ) can be found on the Lesser Sunda Islands and Java . They are significantly slimmer than the Dong Son drums, which may have been the model for the Mokos. Mokos also have four handles. Their use varies from island to island. On Alor and Pantar , mokos were used as commodity money until the 20th century and are still used today as a bride price . On Bali and Adonara , mokos have a sacred meaning and according to the traditional belief on Lembata , the spirits of the ancestors live in them.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Han Xiaorong: The Present Echoes of the Ancient Bronze Drum: Nationalism and Archeology in Modern Vietnam and China , Explorations in Southeast Asian Studies, a journal of the South East Asian Studies Student Association, Vol 2, No. 2, case 1998 , accessed November 22, 2015.
- ↑ a b Richard M. Cooler: The Karen Bronze Drums of Burma , Brill 1995th
- ^ Curt Sachs : The musical instruments of India and Indonesia. Georg Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1915, p. 38.
- ↑ Robert von Heine-Geldern : Significance and origin of the oldest rear Indian metal drums (kettle gongs). ( Memento of September 2, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 428 kB) In: Asia Major, Vol. 8 1932, pp. 519-537
- ↑ a b Pham Minh Huyen: A Typological Study of Bronze Drums in the Ha Giang Museum , ( Memento of July 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Institute of Archeology, Hanoi.
- ↑ Sapo.tl: Tambor Dong Son vietnamita com cerca de 2000 anos found in Timor-Leste , November 18, 2015 , accessed on November 18, 2015.
- ↑ Drum model with four frogs, Dongson culture, 300 bc – 200 ad The Metropolitan Museum of Art