When I told my friend Tyler that I had been keeping a blog about smells, he pointed to an African talking drum sitting in the corner of his living room and said, "You should smell that drum." These drums have a compelling history: because one is able to alter the pitch with ease, a range of tones is available to the player. Speech-like tones and phrases can mimic those used in some African languages, and in certain cases, a drum can communicate language nearly as well as a human! Here's a snippet from a 1942 article on the subject:The Bulu dialect of the African Bantu language can be drummed almost as well as spoken. Reason: it is even more a language of tones than official Chinese. Where the Chinese use four tones, the Bulus have five—two high, two low and one in the middle. So distinct are the pitches and rhythms of the language that sometimes a couple of people "too far apart to hear actual words call back and forth using only the syllables kiki in the tones of the words they would employ in ordinary conversation."
Whoa! Here's another:
A hungry man returning from a hunt may stop at a village four miles from home, send a message to his wife to come in from her garden in the jungle and feed him. Message in drum code: "She is better than the daughter of other tribes, she who stands there. Oyono must not join the fighting, I don't want Oyono to die. Come walk quickly, quickly, I feel hunger not small." Dinner will be waiting when he gets home.All pretty neat stuff, except the drum smelled awful! Talk about old milk on your telephone mouthpiece!
In all fairness, the drum is partially carcass. I needed to know more about this nasty skinflap, so I read an article called "How to Buy a Goat Skin for your D'jembe." I was wary at first, as the title seemed to be the result of a "how to buy a ___ for your ____" Mad Lib. It was the real deal, however. Turns out that "Skins from
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