The Akan Drum is a
drum that was made in West Africa and was later found in the
Colony of Virginia in North America. It is now the oldest African-American object in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
and possibly the oldest surviving anywhere.
The drum is a reminder of all three continents' involvement in the estimated twelve million people transported
across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the
transatlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
.
The drum is normally displayed in Room 26, the North American gallery, in the British Museum.
Description
The drum is made from two species of wood that are native to
sub-Saharan Africa, ''
Baphia
''Baphia'' is a small genus of legumes that bear simple leaves. ''Baphia'' is from the Greek word βάπτω (''báptō-'', "to dip" or "to dye"), referring to a red dye that is extracted from the heartwood of tropical species. The genus is restr ...
'' and ''
Cordia africana
''Cordia africana'' or Sudan teak is a mid-sized, white-flowered, evergreen tree in the borage family (Boraginaceae), native to Africa. It produces edible fruit, and its wood is used for drums or other carpentry.
Uses
''Cordia africana'' has be ...
''. The latter fine-grained
hardwood is known for its ability to be carved and its resonance, which makes it suited to musical instruments.
The
drumskin
A drumhead or drum skin is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum. The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands, so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum.
Additionally outside of percu ...
came from a deer hide and was stretched over the wooden structure using vegetable fibre.
Provenance
The drum was made in the
Ghana region of West Africa between 1700 and 1745, and is presumed to have travelled to America on board a
slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...
. As enslaved people had either been prisoners of war or kidnapped from their homes,
they wouldn't have been able to carry any personal possessions. So it is presumed that the drum was either brought by a member of the crew or possibly by a son of the African chief who had sold the enslaved people for transportation.
[ To exercise their human property, the slave traders would "dance the slaves". It is supposed that this was why the drum was transported.] The word ''Akan Akan may refer to:
People and languages
*Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire
*Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people
*Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan
* Central Tano languages, a language group ...
'' refers to the culture in what is today Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
and includes the Fante, Asante and Akuapem people.
This particular drum was obtained in Virginia by the Rev. Clerk on behalf of the Anglo-Irish scientist Sir Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...
. Sloane had travelled through Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
and had observed at first hand enslaved people playing instruments including those that were to evolve into the banjo. Sloane gathered examples of the tools of slavery and other artifacts which included this drum. Clerk and Sloane thought erroneously that this drum was made by Native Americans, however their trip to Jamaica confirmed that it indeed not only "African" but from the Akan people of Ghana, where the instrument was in abundance amongst others of the Akan such as the Seperewa
The seperewa, also known as seprewa or sanku, is a Ghanaian (specifically Akan) harp-lute, similar to the dagaare/ sisaala ''koriduo'', the Mandé kora, the Gere duu, and Baoule aloko.
Description
The seperewa belongs to a class of harp-lu ...
harp. Sloane's collection is a founding collection of the British Museum, his collection was purchased by the British government in 1753. The drum is still displayed at the British Museum as part of the "Sloane collection". Sloane's catalogue records this item as "''drum made of a hollowed tree carved the top being brac'd wt. peggs & thongs wt. the bottom hollow from Virginia''".
In 1906, curators at the British Museum realised that the drum could not have been created by Native Americans, but must have been made in Africa. In the 1970s, it became possible to use expertise from Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the ...
to determine that the wood was grown in Africa. The drum is thought to have originally been made for a musician in an African chief's orchestra.
Importance
This is the oldest African-American object in the British Museum and was part of its founding collection. This drum was chosen to be featured in ''A History of the World in 100 Objects
''A History of the World in 100 Objects'' was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of a 100-part radio series written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor. In 15-minute presentations broadcast on ...
'', a series of radio programmes that started in 2010 as a collaboration between the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and the British Museum.
The drum has also been used as the lead object in a special display at the British Museum in 2010 called "From Africa to America: drumming, slavery, music". The exhibition looked at how this drum was used in the "dance of the slaves", but also as an example of the collision of cultures that was created by the slave trade that eventually led to
.
The slave owners were unsure of how they should treat African music. On some plantations drums were banned.