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Samoan Material Culture

The Drum

The Drum

The use of the word drum, so commonly applied by Pratt, Stair, Turner, and other authorities to the wooden gongs, is here reserved for instruments hollowed out of wood, but with some kind of skin stretched taut over a part of the hollow. The sound is produced by striking or stroking the skin.

The true drum is a marked feature of marginal Polynesia with the exception of New Zealand. It was evidently absent in Samoa for though some Samoans state that an instrument termed itulasi with shark skin stretched over it was formerly used, at the same time it was said to have been introduced from elsewhere. The lack of definite information concerning it bears out its foreign origin and the fact that it made no headway.