The drums of vodun

Sakété, 1955: the drums of Shango

The CNRS sound archives keep a precious testimony: the recordings made by the photographer and ethnologist Pierre Verger at the annual ceremony of Shango, the Odun Shango, in the sub-prefecture of Sakété, in 1955. One hears a set of three single-membrane batá drums and a bell, women’s choirs singing in the distance the oriki, the praises of Shango, and the noise of the crowd greeting the divinity; a note specifies that, at moments, “the iya drum speaks”^[2]. Three years earlier, in September 1952, Gilbert Rouget and Pierre Verger had already recorded an oriki of Shango at Adja-Ouèrè, near Pobè, on the same plateau^[3]. They also recorded in Dahomey songs for the signs of the Fâ, songs for the vodun and wakes for the returning dead^[4]. See Sakété.

The music of the palaces

Ritual music also lives in the royal courts. Gilbert Rouget devoted a whole book to the songs and dances of the palace of Porto-Novo under King Gbèfa, from 1948 to 1976: a court music in which every moment of royal life has its songs and rhythms^[5]. In Gèlèdè, too, singers and drummers open the ceremony, before the masks enter^[6].

Drums, gongs and bells

One should avoid giving a single list, as if every temple in Benin used exactly the same instruments and names. In the Fon traditions and those of southern Benin, one meets the word gan for the metal gong, and different names for drums according to their function and ensemble; in other ensembles, one meets for example the kpézin drum, and the vocabulary changes between traditions. In Sakété, the archives show the batá, in a Nago-Yoruba context^[1][2].

This illustrates the reality of Benin well: Fon, Nago-Yoruba, Gun, Adja and other cultures meet and answer one another. The Zangbéto, for example, comes out to the sound of the gansou, the great gong, or the kaka, the music of clapping sticks^[7].

Does rhythm “speak” to the vodun?

Yes, in the sense that a rhythm is far more than a series of sounds: it can identify a ceremony, accompany a precise moment, greet a divinity, or announce something to those who know the musical language. But I will not publish transcriptions of reserved rhythms here, nor claim that a rhythm has a word-for-word translation. The language of the drum depends on the context, the player, the rhythm, the songs, the ceremony and the tradition concerned^[1]. The drum also accompanies trance, which Gilbert Rouget studied in his great book on music and possession; see Trance and possession^[8]. In Sakété, the language of the drum also accompanies the outings of Oro and of the Egungun.