Guest wrote:Thanks Mike. I've been able to get enough info searching the web.
I would be interested if anyone else has heard that bongo-bata story. It seemed possible, just not sure how probable. Any of the old guard care to comment? What the heck, folklore can be more fun than facts as long as we don't confuse the two.
Berimbau wrote:I completely disagree with much of the "recieved wisdom" regarding the history of the Cuban bongo. First of all, the name bongo is certainly derived from KiKongo, Mbundu, or another Bantu language. However, this drum is not found in the traditional organology of the Kongo/Anolan region. So where did it come from?
The Yoruba? The bata cut in half theory is precisely this - Half baked!! No doubt this is based on an anomolous turn of the century bata drum with metal tuning hardware discovered by Ortiz. No connection here!
Is it Abakua? The connection with the bonku or ANY OTHER Abakua drum is simply not true. Just conjecture and poor linguistic quess work.
Even worse now is the supposed connection between the Cuban bongo and the so-called Moroccan bongos. These North African earthenware drums are actually known as tbila in Arabic, not as "bongo." Although some Muslim slaves did certainly come to Cuba, they were by far a minority group, especially as compared to their presence in the US or Brasilian slave trade.
Now I doubt if ANY Moroccan slaves were ever exported to Cuba! In fact, the actual slave trade route was from Mali TO Morocco. It was this internal slave trade to Morocco which accounts for the presence of the Gnoua peoples, they are descended from those Malian slaves.
Although larger double lace drums like the copper or brass naqquara have been present in North Africa for centuries, the earthenware tbila are not related to them. The naqqara were stick or mallet beaten large drums designed to be played in Royal courts. Slightly smaller versions were used in the miitary lplayed either on horseback or camelback. In any event, the tbila of contemporary Morocco is by no means an ancient instrument, and may even be DERIVED FROM the Cuban bongo.
I believe that an actual 19th century CUBAN precursor to the Bongo is mentioned in Estaban Montejo's "Autobiography of a Runaway Slave." I believe this drum was created to fullfill a need in Cuban popular music for a lower dynamic hand drum that would bring in the sabor of Africa into changui and the son. Because the drum was CUBAN, it was somewhat more sociolgicaly acceptable than the larger, more threatening conga. Remember, the tumbadoras were not even used in popular Cuban orchestras until the late 1930's. Now why nobody seems to trust the great creativity of the Cuban people to create an original musical instrument is beyond me! The real beauty of the bongo is that it is an Afro-CUBAN drum, emphasis on the CUBAN, please!!
Last year before Katrina sucked my enormous library into the Gulf of Mexico, I had posted something on this very subject on the Bongo Page. If anyone knows those editors, please have them forward it here.
Saludos,
Berimbau
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