Jamari's Drum read by Amy Dinaldo, available at Summersville Community Television YouTube channel (accessed: May 9, 2022).

There once lived an old man in the village of Okpa called Baba Mdogo. He usually sat under a shade near the market square to play the djembe*. He was very much admired by Jamari, a young boy. Sometimes, Jamari would spend whole days with Baba Mdogo, watching him play. Then one day, Jamari asked Baba Mdogo why he played the drum everyday. Baba told him that the drum is the peace keeper of the village and if he did not play it, “the sky would turn black and the ground would grow hot and begin to melt beneath our feet” (3). Jamari did not understand what Baba meant and tried asking from other elders but nobody seemed to know and so Jamari forgot about it.

Some time passed and Jamari had now become a strong young man. Many of the elders had died and Baba Mdogo was almost the only one left. Despite his age, he still beat the drum as vigorously as ever. One day, Jamari was going to the market and stopped to greet Baba. Baba told him he would soon join his ancestors so he wanted to hand over the drum to Jamari since he showed interest in it. Jamari was hesitant as he thought the village was just fine in its usual harmony. But Baba gave him the drum and asked him to play it every day because the village depended on it. He continued to say that there was danger over the mountains and that only the drum could ensure peace. Before Jamari could turn round, Baba had gone. Jamari started playing the drum every day but the pressure of family responsibilities soon weighed on him and he stopped. Then one day, calamity struck. It was as if the world was coming to an end; the sky was turning black, the rivers were bubbling, birds were falling to the ground. Then Baba Mdogo’s words came to Jamari’s mind. He rushed for the djembe and started beating it to the village square, amid shouts and wails. He got to the position where Baba Mdogo used to sit, sat down, and continued beating the drum with vigour, while silently praying for the ancestors to give him strength. Then suddenly, the sky began to clear at Chafua**. Jamari felt triumphant as the villagers stopped running, gathered around him and danced a ngoma***. Peace returned in Okpa and Jamari never forgot to beat the djembe again. Even to this day, the djembe is still beaten in Okpa.

* A carved wooden drum with a goatskin head.

** The Swahili word for destruction.

*** A drum dance among the people of northern Malawi, which started as a war dance but was later performed in other social events. In Eastern Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda, the ngoma is called the drum of the dead because it is a dance that is performed in honour of the ancestor spirits. 

Drums and drumming are very significant elements in African traditions. They do not only announce and accompany socio-political and cultural events in a community by way of producing music, but also serve as a means of communication between the living, and between the living and the dead. The sound of the drum sends important messages to both the living and the dead and maintains the connection between both realms.

The story of Jamari’s drum is a metaphorical representation of the calamity that befalls when the drumming tradition of a people is abandoned. Many African societies believe in the continuity of customs, which are handed down from generation to generation. Baba Mdogo in the story hands down the djembe to Jamari, with a warning to always play it, but Jamari, for his part, soon ignores it giving way to chaos and destruction. However, to prove the power of this tradition on the lives of the people, calm is restored when Jamari resumes playing the drum. Symbolically, therefore, the drum is an instrument of communication with the gods and spirits of the land and the music it produces guarantees the preservation of that connection. Added to this, the people dance the ngoma in acknowledgement of the power of the ancestors in miraculously averting the calamity that was impending.

The tale thus emphasises on the need to honour an ancestral call when it comes to maintain peace and social cohesion both at the level of the community and in the spirit realm.

Strumpf, Mitchel, “Some Music Traditions of Malawi”, African Music 7.4 (1999): 110–121 (accessed: May 9, 2022).

“The Importance of African Drums inTraditional Life” (accessed: May 9, 2022).

Ugobude, Franklin, “The Importance of Drums in African Tradition” (accessed: May 9, 2022).

Yenika-Agbaw, Vivian, Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing, Routledge, 2008.