How Amazonian drum communication sounds (and acts) like human speech

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/27/how-amazonian-drums-sound-and.html

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Drums say it’s Friday, close to happy hour, drums never lie.

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W’ll… mm yeah.

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I’ve seen and heard several of these “jungle telegraphs” as I first heard them referred to. It takes amazing craftsmanship to hollow these logs out. Sadly I hear them less often now than I did 25 years ago but lots of villages still have them sitting in their own little house. They’d make a helluva ringtone on a cell phone.

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I have read about this. Apparently it helps the messages are always very simple ones like “a child has been born.” It wouldn’t work out to trade stocks this way.

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Tough to encrypt.

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Is this a cue for the old joke about why the jungle dwellers always looked so upset when the drumming ended? A missionary new to the area asked why this was. Eventually he discovered they had an overwhelming cultural fear of bass guitar solos ('cos everyone knows what happens when the drum solo stops).

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Wow, that’s an amazing conclusion, who would have ever thought? :roll_eyes:

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Roger that!

BTW - timezones. For once, way ahead of you… :clinking_glasses:

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Kinda like this.

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Or this lot:
“El Silbo” and the Whistling Shepherds of La Gomera (Canary Islands, Spain)

Apparently it is a lot more than signalling - it really is language. Whistling while they work: how shepherds invented a new language in the Canaries

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I saw/heard some unseen drum hand made
but cannot find

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Even in US you can find people with alternative ways to avoid long distance phone calls.

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So, probably they hated Primus…

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There was some good bass playing going on there but it was not a solo, and the jungle dwellers would have been just fine. :wink:
Assuming everyone is familiar with the intro to “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who, this video removes everything from the track but The Ox’s bass line - so the audio does not start until 30 or 40 seconds in. An entire song’s bass line that is almost a solo in its own right. Even the jungle dwellers could appreciate this!

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