Dong Son drums

Drum from Sông Đà, Vietnam. Dong Son II culture. Mid-1st millennium BCE. Bronze.

Đông Sơn drums (Zhuang language: ningdong or aennyenz ; also called Heger Type I drums) are bronze drums fabricated by the Dong Son culture, in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. The drums were produced from about 600 BC or earlier until the third century AD, and are one of the culture's finest examples of metalworking.

The drums, cast in bronze using the lost wax method, are up to a meter in height and weigh up to 100 kg. Dong Son drums were apparently both musical instruments and cult objects. They are decorated with geometric patterns, scenes of daily life and war, animals and birds, and boats. The latter alludes to the importance of trade to the culture in which they were made, and the drums themselves became objects of trade and heirlooms. More than 200 have been found, across an area from eastern Indonesia to Vietnam and parts of Southern China.^[1]

History

Find of Đông Sơn type drums

The bronze drum culture were shared by peoples of ancient Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia^[2] and today Myanmar-Laos-Thailand and China Guangxi-Guizhou boundary regions.^[3] The earliest drum found in 1976 existed 2700 years ago in Wangjiaba (万家坝) in Yunnan Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture China. It is classified into the bigger and heavier Yue (粤系) drums including the Dong Son drums, and the Dian (滇系) drums, into 8 subtypes, purported to be invented by Ma Yuan and Zhuge Liang.^[4] But the Book of the Later Han said Ma melt the bronze drums seized from the rebel Lạc Việt in Jiaozhi into horse.

The discovery of Đông Sơn drums in New Guinea, is seen as proof of trade connections - spanning at least the past thousand years - between this region and the technologically advanced societies of Java and China.^[5]

In 1902, a collection of 165 large bronze drums was published by F. Heger, who subdivided them into a classification of four types.^[6]

Appearances

Image on the Ngoc Lu bronze drum's surface, Vietnam

The drums are have a symmetrical appearance with three parts:

1) the barrel (upper part),

2) the body (middle part) and

3) the foot (lower part).

The patterns on drums bear a realistic style and show stilted houses, dancing people, people pounding rice, beating drums and sailing, together with animal and birds. The scenes depict daily life of ancient Vient and reflect the artistic talent and mind. The drums were used as musical instruments in festivals, such as prayers for rain, for good harvest and rituals, such as weddings and funerals, as well as command in army. They were also used as funerary objects and symbol of power of tribe leaders.

Classification

The Heger 1 drums of the Dong Son culture were classified and divided into five groups by the Vietnamese scholar Pham Huy Thong in 1990, a division that implied a chronological succession. The earliest, group A, comprisees a set of large and intricated decorated drums. Group B consists of a smaller drums which almost universally have a group of waterbirds in flight as their key motif on the tympanum and the mantle designs. Group C has a central panel on the tympanum made up of a row of plumed warriors placed inside another panel of waterbirds in flight. Toads line the tympanum's edge while the mantle was decorated with either patterns involving boats or geometric patterns.^[6]

Notable drums

Ngoc Lu

Ngoc Lu bronze drum's surface, Vietnam

Main article: Ngoc Lu drum

The Ngoc Lu drum is regarded as the most important of the Dong Son drums. The drum was accidentally discovered in 1893 in Ha Nam Province, southeast of Hanoi, rather than during a planned expedition. In contrast to most other drums of the Dong Son, the tympanum bears three concentric panels, which depict animals or humans, interleaved with bands of geometric or circular patterns. The innermost panel appears to be a self-referencing depiction, as it is decorated with pictures of humans who appear to be performing a ceremony involving the drums themselves. Other musical instruments and rice growing and harvesting activities are also shown. The two outer panels are decorated with scenes of deer, hornbills and crane egrets.^[7]

Hoàng Ha

Hoàng Ha bronze drum's surface, Vietnam

The Hoàng Ha drum is a notable specimen of the Dong Son culture of the Bronze Age that existed in the Red River Delta in approximately the first five centuries BCE.^[8]

It was discovered in Ha Son Binh Province in 1937 near the village of Hoàng Ha, with an outer panel of crane egrets and an inner panel which shows a procession similar to that described in the Ngoc Lu drum, the most famous of the Dong Son drums.^[8]

Four feathered men are depicted walking in a line, brandishing spears, with two musicians in tow. A person is depicted standing under the eaves of a house, beating a drum while the rice fields are unattended, allowing a bird to eat the rice that was intended for threshing. The boats depicted on the mantle of the drum are very similar, with an analogous cleft prow, archer standing on raised platform and a drum. However, the drum is different from the Ngoc Lu drum in that the animal is absent.^[8]

Co Loa

Co Loa bronze drum's surface, Vietnam

The Co Loa drum is a notable specimen of the Dong Son culture of the Bronze Age that existed in the Red River Delta in approximately the first five centuries BCE.^[8]

The drum shows a procession similar to that described in the Ngoc Lu drum, the most famous of the Dong Son drums. The drum only has two warriors with spears, in contrast to that of the Ngoc Lu drum. Another difference is that the ensemble of percussionists consists of three drummers, with one drum lying under the eaves of the house. Meanwhile, an extra person is depicted in the rice threshing process. The person has long hair and is winnowing grain into a bowl. The percussion ensemble is also depicted differently in that the drummers are not all drumming in synchronisation. Two of the drummers are depicted making contact with the drum, while the other two drummers have their batons in the raised position.^[8]

Song Da

The Song Da drum is a notable specimen of the Dong Son culture of the Bronze Age that existed in the Red River Delta in approximately the first five centuries BCE. It was discovered in Ha Son Binh Province in the 19th century.^[9]

The drum shows a procession similar to that described in the Ngoc Lu drum, the most famous of the Dong Son drums. This drum varies in that it depicts four sets of men in procession with feathered headgear, rather than two. Also, each set comprises three or four people none of whom appear to be armed. The posture of the men was interpreted as that they were participating in a dance rather than a military ceremony. In this drum, only one pair of people are depicted as threshing rice, and there is no cymbal player. However, the general motifs, such as the boats on the mantle, remain in place.^[9]

Others

Small sized bronze drums

The Quang Xuong drum from Thanh Hoa Province is another specimen, which is believed to be possibly later in origin. However, the drum is smaller and the images are harder to interpret.^[6]

Large drums found in northern Vietnam were generally in the minority, as most drums have simple decorations with fewer representations of people. The Ban Thom drum has only an inner panel with four houses and plumed humans standing alone or in couples.^[6]

Modern customs

Zhuang people in Yunnan practice ningdong wine, ningdong music, etc. The ningdongs used by them have same decoration with Dong Son drums. ^[10]

See also

• Moko drum
• Ngoc Lu drum

Notes

1. ^ Heidhues, Mary Somers (2000). Southeast Asia: A Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 19–20. 
2. ^ 蒋廷瑜:略论铜鼓在东盟各国的分布
3. ^ 关于河池民间传世铜鼓情况调研报告
4. ^ 金鸡铜鼓说铜鼓
5. ^ Diamond, Jared (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fate of Human Societies. New York: W.W Norton & Co.. pp. 307. ISBN 0-393-03891-2. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Higham, p. 128.
7. ^ Higham, p. 124.
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} Higham, p. 126.
9. ^ ^{a b} Higham, p. 127.
10. ^ "Ningdong". Ndei Lai Biengz Raeuz. CCTV.

References

• Higham, Charles (1996). The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Cambridge World Archaeology. ISBN 0-521-56505-7. 

External links

• The Present Echoes of the Ancient Bronze Drum by Han Xiaorong (University of Hawaii)
• Meaning of the Ngoc Lu bronze drum's surface
• Dong Son culture(Photo collection)
• Page at the Metropolitan Museum of Art