DRUMMING

excerpt from CHEROKEE DIARY (see Aug 31, 2010)

Put your ear next to a loved one's chest and listen to that heartbeat.  That is the rhythm of the Native American drum.  The chanting heard during a drumming ceremony is usually a prayer in the language of that particular tribe.  Sometimes it is a story or a love song.

We had a guest teacher from Murfeesboro, Snow Bear Taylor, who trained in Africa as well as with Native Americans.  He was Native American but had a heart connection to Africa.  He demonstrated the rhythms he knew from the African culture, then told us that all drumming originated in Africa.  He taught us an old  drumming song, the words were a call to the captured African youth who were put on the trains to be taken to the boats for crossing to America and other slave owning countries.  The call was from the mothers in mourning.