ABSTRACT
Talking drums are found in South-East Asia and Melanesia, but it is with West Africa that they are most associated. Tambora is the Xhosa word for drum, and the name taken by a group of young South African women performers with whom I have often worked. The language of the drum is as understandable as spoken language in the cultures in which it is used. The drum is thought to imitate the human voice. Perhaps the human voice imitates the drum. The drum became the voice of their thoughts as much as Shakespeare’s language. In Africa the drums can communicate the subtlest of thoughts over huge distances. The actor’s voice does not have the same power which is why the gods decreed that the size of a theatre should be such that there can be no more than sixty-four hastras between the performer and the auditor.
