Double-Headed Drum (Uele District, Democratic Republic of the Congo)

This double-headed drum comes from the Uele District in the northeastern part of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. It belongs to a distinctive regional tradition of membrane tension documented for the Uele region. Jean-Sébastien Laurenty describes comparable drums and their construction in his comprehensive study L'organologie du Zaïre, Tome III: Les Membranophones.

The most distinctive technical feature is the system used to tension the two membranes. The skins are secured around their respective rims and connected by numerous leather straps running along the outside of the resonator. These straps pass alternately between attachment points at the upper and lower membranes, forming an extensive network around the entire body. Additional transverse straps reinforce the construction and help distribute the tension between the two membranes.

Olga Boone published comparable examples from the Uele region in Les tambours du Congo belge et du Ruanda-Urundi (1951). In her classification of drums with strap tension, she describes the characteristic construction of the Uele examples and illustrates comparable instruments. These historical representations provide important comparative evidence for the regional distribution of this type of drum construction.

References

Boone, Olga (1951): Les tambours du Congo belge et du Ruanda-Urundi. Tervuren: Musée du Congo belge. Comparative examples from the Uele region.
Laurenty, Jean-Sebastien: L'organologie du Zaïre, Tome III: Les Membranophones. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale.