Hoodoo Voodoo?

This piece represents a wild departure from my usual posts. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I also collect odd, unusual, or "ethnic" musical instruments, which I also play. This overlapping of my interest in weapons and music makes my wunderkammer particularly interesting (at least to me). Also added to the mix is my keen interest in "primitive" religions (and I mean this without value judgment). I dig "voodoo" (and the popular perception thereof), hoodoo, shamanism, African and Asian animism, among others. While not a beleiver of any sort myself, I appreciate the mechanisms by which religion may have come into being, and also the ways in which the African diaspora incorporated European rites into their belief systems fractured by the abhorrent institution of slavery. For example, Haitian Vodou (or Vodun, but never "Voodoo") is intriguing in the way in which it incorporated Catholicism into half-remembered Dahomey beliefs imported by slaves. It's both sad and enlightening. Read Voodoo in Haiti by Alfred Metraux, or the works of Zora Neale Hurston, or even Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou by Donald J. Cosentino to learn more (the latter work is beautifully illustrated).

To this end, today's entry is a wooden drum from Haiti. It is reportedly from the late 1800's, and is by all accounts a drum used in Vodou rites. It stands over 4' tall, and sounds with a deep, booming bass that reverberates in ones thorax. It makes an imposing addition to the arsenal, and complements the weaponry motif with a touch of the Caribbean (along with other artifacts).