Village Vignettes 2: Drums

Some of the most memorable events of our village stay involved drums. Three types of drums stood out: the kundu, the mambuben, and the garamut. Each is very different.

Kundu

The kundu is probably the most well-known kind of drum in PNG. It is a handheld drum, about 2-3 feet long, hollowed out of wood in an hourglass shape. Lizard or snake skin is stretched over the top to form the beating surface.  Kundus are often used at singsings (traditional dances).

Kundus are part of this singsing, held by the men dancing in the circle.

Mambuben

The mambuben is a bamboo drum. Three layers of three bamboo pipes of different lengths are put together. It almost looks like a miniature pipe organ on its side. The drummer sits on top and uses the soles of flip-flops as drum sticks. A guitar accompanies. Some of the young men in our village were practicing for an upcoming competition, right next door to us. If they weren’t playing one particular night, we could be sure that people in the next village (1 km away) were – so on many nights, we fell asleep to the music of the mambuben. I had a chance to try it too, and quite enjoyed it.  

Playing the mambuben.

 Garamut

The garamut was the one drum type that featured the most prominently in our time in Waliyaksor. This is a big drum carved out of the trunk of an ironwood tree. It makes a wonderful deep sound that carries very well through the jungle, and for this reason, the garamut was traditionally used to send messages from village to village. Each person has a beat that signifies his name; other beats can indicate someone has died, or war is breaking out, or “your wife wants you to come home.” With mobile phone coverage throughout most of PNG nowadays, the garamut has become more or less obsolete from a practical point of view, and most younger and middle-aged people don’t really know how to use them anymore. However, they are still being made, and communities do value them for their cultural significance.

Beating a garamut.

While we were living in Waliyaksor, the men of the village (both old and young) were working on carving four garamut out of one great big ironwood tree that had fallen down. This was the first time in about 16 years that any garamut had been made in the village, so this made for quite some excitement. It used to take weeks to make just one garamut; however, with modern tools (and not even power tools), they were able to carve out four in just one week.

Chiselling out the garamut.

On our last full day in the village, it was time to bring the garamut up from the jungle into the village (about 700 metres away). Men came from several surrounding villages to help out. As we walked down the steep hill to the garamut workshop, we wondered how it would be possible to bring them all the way up. Ironwood, after all, isn’t named ironwood for no reason: each garamut probably weighs a few hundred kilograms. 

Someone had prepared a great big vine (about 5 cm in diameter); one end of it was tied to a garamut, while the loose end was laid out along the path. About fifty men grabbed hold of the vine, and one man at the front started singing and beating a kundu. At his direction, everyone pulled, and the garamut lurched forward a foot or two. Again, and again they pulled. I joined in. Eventually, the garamut came to a place that wasn’t quite so steep, and the team had enough momentum to just go and go without stopping. It’s pretty exciting to be part of a team pulling this really heavy object by muscle-power alone, shouting and cheering the whole way, knocking over small trees that dare to stand in the way of the garamut, and jumping around other small trees so we wouldn’t get squished between them and the vine. At the crest of the hill, there was a renewed effort to rush into the village, and rush we did. Then a few minutes to rest, and down to get the next garamut. Once they were all up, it was really time to rest. Coconuts were opened up and passed around – they make a very refreshing drink!

Teamwork

Questions
We really enjoyed being part of these cultural experiences, but at the same time, they leave us with many questions. Traditional religion in PNG is still very strong. Many people say they are Christians, and yet have no trouble calling on their ancestor spirits, or checking with bush spirits before starting something new. Several times I heard young children expressing their fear of sorcery (and explicitly denying the power of God). Knowing this, we were often somewhat cautious in how much we should actually get involved.

Take the garamut for example. There are all kinds of taboos associated with them. For example, women are not allowed to come to a place where garamut are being made, and are not allowed to sit on them when they have been completed. What really tipped me off that there might be something sinister about the garamut is that the night before the garamut are brought up to the village, all the village leaders traditionally come together and have an all-night singsing. Fair enough, I can imagine that people in the village would want to celebrate this big event (although I myself had no desire to stay up all night). However, when I asked some of the local Christian leaders about it, they weren’t too impressed – although it was still hard to figure out exactly what was wrong. I’m not entirely sure, but I get the impression that this overnight singsing had something to do with appeasing spirits and clearing the way for the garamut to come into the village.

Was it OK for us to get involved at all? Or were we exposing ourselves to attacks of the devil? Was our very presence a silent approval of some evil that was going on? Here again, I asked the local Christian leaders – men who are very committed to the faith and very concerned not to be syncretistic. One man told us he had mixed feelings: garamut are fine if they are used for communication (as described above), but they can also be used for evil as well in the spirit world. He himself was going to stay away from all the garamut ceremonies. But at the same time, he said it was fine for me, a foreigner, to go – I was just observing the culture and I don’t have those spirit-world associations.  In a sense, you could compare it to any modern medium today, such as TV or the Internet: these things in themselves are not bad, but they can also be used to promote horrible evils.

Despite these questions, we do thoroughly appreciate having had these experiences. They help us to understand more of the values of Papua New Guineans. Other missionaries have recommended that when we have questions about what’s just cultural and what’s not appropriate for Christians, we should ask committed local Christians who have more of an idea of the real significance behind everything. That sounds like good advice. We have lots to learn yet.