AFRICA'S TALKING DRUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

AFRICA'S TALKING DRUM.

One of Africa's unfathomable mysteries is the talking dum. In all parts of Africa news is tapped out on the drums just as it was a thousand years ago. Enormous distances are covered, says Mr. Lawrence G. Green, in his •'Great African Mysteries": —

"The most noteworthy example in recent times occurred when the news of the death of Queen Victoria was cabled to West Africa. Natives in outposts hundreds of miles from railways and telegraph lines immediately began talking of the death of the 'Great White Queen.' Government officials received confirmation of these drum messages days and weeks afterwards.

"Again, when Khartoum fell and General Gordon and his staff died fighting, the details were known in Sierra Leone the same day. During every African campaign news has flashed across Africa in this way."

The drum's seem to disregard the language difficulty. For there are in Africa about 000 languages, although many have resemblances which justify their division into groups: —■ "Yet no corner of Africa is so remote that drums are not used, and understood. Men who have lived long and close to the far edge of things in Africa helped me towards a possible solution of the mystery of the long-distance drums. They spoke of the secret languages which are constructed by the initiates of many tribes. Extreme ingenuity is displayed by certain of the quick-witted groups of natives in using these ever-changing code tongues. It is said that a chief in the Cameroon* invented a secret language embodying English, French and German wordsonly the meanings given to them were entirely different from those of the white men!" The range of the drums, says Mr. Green, in ideal conditions, is probably not more than 20 miles: — ' "Much depends on the skill of the drummer —a man who, in a prosperous village, does no other work. He is trained in an art more difficult than the mastery of any musical instrument in civilised lands. He must learn the special names for people and things in the drums' language —names which are taboo on all other occasions."