(pl. tambura).
A common name for the Kettledrum used in sets as part of the regalia of many traditional savanna states of West Africa. Its association with royalty in, for instance, the Hausa states of Nigeria is chronicled in the 17th century, and in its form, usage and name the tambari is related to the 16th-century court tabl at Fez in the Maghrib.
The individual drums in a set vary considerably in size so that the membranes may measure from 23 cm to 65 cm in diameter, and the height of the drum bodies from 20 cm to 60 cm. The tambari is beaten with two heavy thongs of hippopotamus hide, producing a deep and resonant sound. In performances the drums may be mounted singly or in pairs on heavy stakes driven into the ground (see illustration), or in pairs on the backs of camels for use in royal cavalcades.
The drums have a wooden or bronze-cased body and a membrane of cowhide laced to a metal ring round the base. In the areas of the traditional Hausa states, the tambura rank with Kakaki trumpets as the most important ceremonial instruments of the Islamic rulers. However, even within Hausaland the drums and their usage vary according to area. In Zaria the practice is to use two pairs of large wooden tambura (a salo-salo pair and a ’yan dai-dai pair) with one or two smaller wooden kuntukun tambura. The large tambura range from 42 to 53 cm in height and 40 to 52 cm in diameter, and the kuntukun are 27 cm in both height and diameter. The ’yan dai-dai, suspended from one forked pole, are struck alternately by one drummer while on the salo-salo, on another pole, the chief drummer, a beater in each hand, drums out the emir’s praise rhythm (take). The kuntukun tambura are placed upright on the ground and struck by seated drummers, each with two beaters.
In the Katsina region there are ten royal drums which are all approximately the same size, 50 cm in height and 40 cm in diameter, apart from the gwabron tambari, known as the ‘unique’ or ‘bachelor’ drum. A trophy of the early 19th century jihad (religious war), it is saucer-shaped, 65 cm in diameter and 22 cm high. In processional usage in Katsina six tambura are used, slung in pairs on three camels. In stationary performances five tambura are held on three Y-shaped poles, the central drum being beaten by an official known as tambura and the outer pairs by his two assistants. Each drummer has two beaters. The gwabron tambari is again unique in that it is suspended just above the ground by two men each holding a handle on either side of its body. Its only use is when beaten on its own with a single beater for a traditionally prescribed number of strokes on the installation of the emir or certain officials.
At Abuja are two unusual small bronze-cased tambura called lingarai. They were brought from Zaria in the early 19th century and are wider than they are tall, measuring 21 cm in height and respectively 26 cm and 30 cm in diameter.
Among other tambura which have been reported in Hausaland are drums at Sokoto measuring about 30 cm in height and 45 cm in diameter, which were played propped up on stones or wooden blocks by seated drummers. Another set at Argungu comprises three deep and three shallow drums. At Anka in the Zamfara area there were once 12 or even 24 tambura but in the early 1960s it was learnt that only one had survived the collapse of the emir’s palace. Two ancient metal tambura, 45 cm in height and 37 cm in diameter, were found in a very dilapidated condition in 1927 in the emir’s palace at Daura. Silver and copper drums of Songhay are said to have been buried during the 16th century Moorish invasion and two tambura found at Kengakwoi are believed to be copies.
Despite slight variations according to locality, the tambura are used in general either for ‘signalling’, as at Daura to mark the beginning and end of certain months in the Islamic calendar, or for the performance of identificatory rhythms, such as in salutation of the emir on Thursday evening. At Anka in 1961 on the evening before the major Islamic festivals the emir himself would beat the one remaining tambari several times with his left hand.
Pre-Islamic practices also survive. At Anka, for example, the official entrusted with repair of a tambari’s torn membrane would ritually pour a mixture of goat’s blood and honey through a hole in the side of the drum. Royal drums are reputed to have hidden such relics as the dried-up heart of an enemy and a very ancient copy of the Koran.
Elsewhere in Nigeria the status and performing practices associated with the tambura are similar to those of Hausa areas. Tambari drumming was introduced to the Bauchi emirate by Malam Yakabu (1805–43). In Yorubaland in the 19th century the Fulani preacher, Malan Alimi, who was called in to assist the local people at Ilolin in their struggle against Oyo dominance and whose sons became the first two emirs, had his own tambura. Today royal drums see use not only by non-Hausa rulers such as the Etsu Nupe, whose wooden tambari at Bida is reported as 150 cm in diameter, and the Emir of Yola, but even among the Kambari people where a large, ground-standing tambari is beaten for the Muslim chief.
Ames–KingGHM
P.G. Harris: ‘Notes on Drums and Musical Instruments Seen in Sokoto Province, Nigeria’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, lxii (1932), 105–25, esp. 105–6
H.R. Palmer: The Bornu Sahara and Sudan (London, 1936)
H.E. Hause: ‘Terms for Musical Instruments in the Sudanic Languages: a Lexicographical Inquiry’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, lxiii (1948), suppl.7
K. Krieger: ‘Musikinstrumente der Hausa’, Baessler-Archiv, new ser., xvi (1968), 373–430
ANTHONY KING/K.A. GOURLAY/ROGER BLENCH