Photo Gallery

The inhabitants of Djanet dance the festival of Shebiba. The women beat the obsessive rhythm tirelessly with their drum, the Ganga. - Algeria - 1962

The Coast Salish artist Susan A. Point created this modern round drum. It consists of a red cedar frame covered with deer skin. The thunderbird in double profile is painted in the style of a spinning whorl. This type of drum is used today in place of a drum board as accompaniment for the songs sung during a stick game (see 53). (44 cm)

Drum in the form of a bentwood box. Its sides consist of a single board, notched and bent at the corners. Raven Yel is depicted in double profile with the Sun, which he placed in the heavens. Made in 1972 by Earl Muldoe, a Tsimshian artist in 'Ksan. (100 cm, NMM)
NMM = National Museum of Man, Ottawa

The folk music of the north-western provinces of Argentina is of remarkable diversity. Its origins date back to pre-Columbian times, but the influences of Western music are also clearly visible. This folklore has its followers among the foreigners as well as the natives. This Indian beats a small drum and sings, surrounded by colleagues and spectators. It is the eve of the Salta city festival in memory of the hero of the wars of independence, Martin Miguel de Güemes, a famous son of this province. - 1973

The main festival in Chichicastenango is celebrated every 21st December during the winter solstice in honour of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Throughout pre-Columbian times, the Indians knew only two types of musical instruments, drums and wind instruments (flutes, trumpets, whistles and ocarinas) made of cane stalks, bamboo or clay. - 1977

The inhabitants of Djanet dance the festival of Shebiba. The women beat the obsessive rhythm tirelessly with their drum, the Ganga. - Algeria - 1962

In the gilded sands of the evening, the inhabitants of Djanet dance. It is the festival of Shebiba, so called because it takes place in the first month of the year, which is called "Shebiba" in Tamashek, the Tuareg language. The two main characters of the festival, dressed in rich robes, twirl the takuba, the sword of the noble Tuareg. The women beat the obsessive rhythm tirelessly with their drum, the Ganga. - Algeria - 1966

The Tubu blacksmith of Bardaï, in the heart of the Tibesti, has an extremely important function, as he is also a musician and, as such, leads the dances during the festivals. The very slim type of this man is remarkable, as he could be seen on a buccaneer's boat in the Red Sea. The anthropology of the human groups currently living in the desert strip of North Africa confirms what human palaeontology already revealed in the Neolithic period; we always find three types: Mediterranean, black and mixed race. The passage of the first type undoubtedly took place at the level of the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez, but this delicate problem is far from being completely clarified. - Bardaï - Tibesti - Chad - 1967