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People of the Drum of God - Come!
Ethnography of a Speech Surrogate Performance Paradigm
by Paul Neeley, 1999
Dallas: SIL, 300 pages
Have you ever thought about how to gather your rural congregation
if you
were in the African bush? This book details how one church
leader in
Cameroon uses a hollow log "talking drum" to communicate to everyone
in the area, calling them to early morning prayer twice a week.
The drummed poem changes every week as the various parts of the discourse
are rearranged, repeated, or omitted according to the performer's
discretion.
The drum calls, entreats, exhorts, even insults people
(calling them "little monkeys" and "a solitary bush pig") as the
drumming of
the church catechist reminds the villagers to remember the vows
they made at baptism and to come to church now. The final
stanza
warns people to think ahead to the day when they will die and see
God face
to face to give account of their lives - and to therefore act accordingly
here on earth.
The book gives unprecedented insight into how the traditional art
form of a "talking drum" can be used in the service of the church,
communicating to people using a medium that is culturally relevant.
The book
is fairly academic, using the same material as in the author's dissertation,
but all technical terms are explained. The analysis ranges
from the
connection of spoken syllables to the drum strokes, to the creation
of lines
and stanzas at the discourse level, to the level of community comprehension.
This study draws from such diverse academic disciplines as sociolinguistics,
anthropology, semiotics, cognition, performance studies, phonology,
communication theory, discourse studies, aesthetics, and ethnomusicology
to
paint a multifaceted picture of the "art of the talking drum" used
to gather
Christians in rural Cameroon.
This book, a detailed example of an existing "ethnic art medium"
now
used in a Christian context, is available from the author at
paulneeley@netscape.net
for $29 plus shipping; two 60-minute audio cassette tapes
that accompany the book are also available.
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