Whenever I watch an old Tarzan movie on TV, right when Tarzan and a few of the intruding white guys are worried sick and looking high and low we suddenly hear the drums. Tarzan stiffens, puts a hand to one ear, and announces, “They have the girl. She is well, but they will not give her back unless you shut down your mines. They are 200 men strong and have guns. They will be here before dark tonight.” Huh? How did he get that from a few drumbeats? Is there really a way to communicate any message besides “I’m beating a drum” across the jungle like this? And while you’re at it, what’s the story with those smoke signals the Indians were always sending? –Lying Awake in Wonder, Anna Banana, Olney, Illinois
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You don’t believe everything you see in the movies? In the age of Oliver Stone this is comforting news. But there really are such things as talking drums.
Drum telegraphy is accomplished using two-tone drums that duplicate these tonal patterns. You are thinking you see a fatal flaw in this approach: like there’s only one three-syllable word in Kele that’s intoned L-H-L? Of course not. To provide unique tonal combinations common words are replaced by stock phrases. Thus songe (moon, H-H) is distinguished from kaka (fowl, also H-H) by stretching out the former into songe li tange la manga, “the moon looks down at the earth,” H-H-L-H-L-L-L-L, and the latter into kaka olongo la bokiokio, “the fowl, the little one which says ‘kiokio,”‘ H-H-L-H-H-L-L-H-L-H-L.
