Another Day in the Country
The drum circle
© Another Day in the Country
All of my life, I’ve had this fascination with Native American lore, but it wasn’t until I read a book by Reginald and Gladys Laubin called “The Indian Tipi, Its History, Construction, and Use,” that I decided that I had to have one.
Altogether, I’ve had three tipis — two that I made out of canvas in Northern California and one that I bought at an auction here in Kansas and erected beside the house that we called Cousin’s Corner on Ramona’s main drag.
A while after we put the tipi up in town, we went to the River Festival in Salina and met an Indian craftsman from Washington State who was demonstrating and selling these beautiful wooden drums he’d made.
I bought one! Listening to the guys playing these drums at the festival, I thought wouldn’t it be great fun to have a drum circle?
“I think I’d like a drum, too,” my sister said.
We were set. We had the tip. We had the drums. We were living in the country now, not having to keep regular business hours at an office. And maybe we’d find some other drum enthusiasts and have a weekly drum circle in our yard. We might find new friends.
Dream on. Sad to say, I haven’t met any drumming enthusiasts in Ramona through the years of our tenure.
However, ever since my grandson, Dagfinnr, was a little guy, he’s loved playing my drums. Our whole family would grab a drum, and we’d sit around the living room making our own style of music.
My bonus grandkids (who really belong to my cousin) also love playing with the drums, but my drums have rarely got the workout they received this past Friday evening at the Artful Eye Show at Centre Elementary.
Through the years, the drum collection has grown to include our River Festival drums, two Taos Indian drums, two old drums that I brought back from India, and a couple of African-origin drums along with an ancient tambourine and some gourds I’d painted.
You can raise quite a ruckus with all of this and have quite a lot of fun.
As I was dreaming up a theme for our school art presentation at Centre, I wanted to highlight the Native American art the children had done by putting up a facade of a tipi against a gymnasium wall.
While they were studying Indian culture in fifth grade history class, we’d also made ceremonial masks in art, built tipis out of clay, and painted portraits of Native American leaders from the past.
Now was the moment for me to pull out all the Native American artifacts from around my house and let them come out and play.
If you weren’t there, you’ll have to imagine in one corner of the gym a tall tipi with a chief sitting in the doorway in all his regalia.
There were Indian maidens in buckskin and feathers and, since there was this art festival, a bunch of rather wild Indians with their masks on were playing in a drumming circle as their families walked through the gym, admiring artwork displayed on tables and hanging on walls.
We did try to practice drumming. I explained about listening for the slow beat of the drums and then joining in. After a while you can begin to add extra beats and improvise a little, but to start with it is the slow beat, like a beating heart, that you tune into.
The kids were so excited. There’s just something about playing a drum that is so captivating.
Other musical instruments take a lot of practice to make an impact. You must hone your skill for years on a clarinet or saxophone before you grab someone’s attention. But a drum — BANG, and you’ve got them listening.
Drums are about feeling, and they feel so powerful. Playing in a group, all moving together, is exciting.
In preparation, I bought a CD with authentic tribal drumming on it that the kids could play along with. But you know how that goes these days. You don’t actually get a CD, I discovered. It just arrived on my Apple computer. When I tried to make it compatible with the school’s computers, it wouldn’t work.
“Can’t we just do our own thing?” one of my fifth graders asked me.
I gave him a look that said, without uttering a word, “Really? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Because the technology wasn’t really compatible, they pretty much did do their own thing.
One of the concepts I’ve taken to heart from Native American culture is the power of the circle.
When we gather together, facing each other in a circle, it reinforces the fact that everyone in the circle sees something different from where he or she sits and also that everyone’s perspective is important.
In the drum circle, someone leads, we listen to the beat, we watch each other play, we join in, and we add our bit to the rhythm.
It’s exhilarating. It’s powerful. It’s a reminder of what community is, what having a neighborhood means, and what power there can be when we all work together, honoring, listening, watching, circling, on another day in the country.