In Vietnam, a drum can summon a village, speak to the spirits or mark a child’s first day of school. Behind its beat lies a world of centuries-old craftsmanship, rituals and beliefs.
From village festivals and spiritual rituals to schools, the beat of the drum has accompanied Vietnamese life for generations, carrying meanings that extend far beyond music.
In Vietnamese cultural life, drums can be heard in many settings, from village festivals and religious rituals to schools and community gatherings. Their meanings may differ, but their rhythms share a common role in bringing communities together.
An exhibition titled Nhat trong: One drumbeat – A thousand years of civilization at Hanoi’s Temple of Literature explores the story of Vietnamese drums and the cultural identities embodied in them. Across village festivals, spiritual ceremonies and schools, the drumbeat has long provided a rhythm to communal life.
The millennium-old secret of buffalo hide and jackfruit wood
Pham Tri Trong, chairman of the Doi Tam Drum Craft Village Association in Ninh Binh Province.
Speaking to VietNamNet, Pham Tri Trong, chairman of the Doi Tam Drum Craft Village Association in northern Vietnam’s Ninh Binh Province, proudly described a heritage stretching back more than 1,000 years. The tradition traces its origins to the village’s founding craftsman, who was born in 925.
Through centuries of upheaval and change, generations of Doi Tam craftsmen have remained committed to preserving their traditional techniques: the drum body must be made from jackfruit wood, the drumhead from buffalo hide, and the craft is passed down only to sons.
Trong recited an old folk saying: “Buffalo hide, jackfruit body. Strike it lightly, hear it loudly.”
The saying also pays tribute to an animal deeply associated with Vietnam’s wet-rice civilization. In life, the buffalo plowed the fields; after death, its durable hide continued to serve the community by producing sounds woven into everyday life.
Doi Tam drums are distinguished by their characteristic rounded bodies and carefully balanced proportions between the drumhead and shell.
Drawing on techniques refined over a millennium, craftsmen can produce a remarkably wide spectrum of sounds, from high to low and loud to soft, tailored to settings ranging from communal houses and pagodas to ceremonies and schools.
That distinctive craftsmanship gives Doi Tam drums a sound of their own. According to Trong, wherever they are played across Vietnam, their tone can be recognized immediately.
Doi Tam drums are distinguished by their characteristic rounded bodies and carefully balanced proportions between the drumhead and shell.
Unique drums of Vietnam’s Central Highlands
According to collector Nguyen Minh Tam, drums in Vietnam’s Central Highlands were never ordinary household possessions. Traditionally, only wealthy and influential families within a village had the means to make one.
The process itself was steeped in ritual and mystery, beginning with the selection of the tree.
Villagers had to venture deep into the forest to find a strong, perfectly straight tree more than one meter in diameter. It could not have vines wrapped around it, a beehive, a broken crown or, most importantly, a hollow trunk.
Once a suitable tree had been identified, a group of seven strong young men would enter the forest carrying shields and spears, along with a pig and rice wine for an offering to the tree spirit.
To determine whether the spirit would allow the tree to be sacrificed for a drum, the most skilled member of the group would hurl an axe into the trunk before everyone returned home.
“When they came back the following day, if the axe was still firmly embedded in the tree, it meant the tree spirit had agreed to let them cut it down,” Tam said.
Even the direction in which the tree fell mattered. Villagers would ensure it fell toward higher ground rather than toward a stream.
A section of trunk about one meter long would then be cut and shaped into the drum body while still in the forest before being taken back to the village.
The rituals did not end there. Before entering the forest, villagers would sacrifice cattle or buffaloes to the forest spirit. When the drum body was finally brought home, a female buffalo would be slaughtered for a feast shared by the entire village, with its hide then used for the drumhead.
Today, making a single-piece drum from a massive tree trunk in the traditional manner is almost impossible.
“Preservation is very difficult now,” Tam said. “Forest protection laws are extremely strict, so nobody dares to cut down these enormous trees anymore. Wild buffalo hides are also extremely scarce, and it takes two large hides to complete a drum.”
Central Highlands drums are typically unique pieces rather than standardized instruments.
Another distinctive feature is their male-female structure, reflecting the region’s matrilineal traditions.
Central Highlands drums are typically unique, individually crafted pieces.
Each drum has two sides: a female and a male drumhead. The female side is made from the hide of a female buffalo and is always about 2-3cm larger than the male side. Its hide is also stretched particularly tightly.
Reflecting the respect accorded to matrilineal traditions, the female drumhead is played only during major village ceremonies, such as celebrations for a communal house or rituals honoring the village water source.
The male drumhead, made from the hide of a male buffalo, is reserved for smaller family occasions.
The hides used on Central Highlands drums can be as thick as a finger joint because local craftsmen do not shave them thin as is done elsewhere.
As a result, their sound does not travel exceptionally far, but it is deep, powerful and resonant. From the rhythm alone, listeners can distinguish whether a village is celebrating a new rice harvest, holding a Po Thi ceremony to bid farewell to the dead, or welcoming honored guests.
Tam also revealed one of the drum’s most intriguing details: a tiny hole, about 5mm wide, is drilled into each drumhead.
“They make this little hole to give the drum an ‘ear,’” he said. “They believe that only then can the drum hear human voices, understand right from wrong and comprehend what lies in people’s hearts.”
For Central Highlands communities, the drum is sacred, serving as a bridge between humans and the spirits, known as Yang. It is therefore never placed directly on the ground.
In a communal house, the drum is suspended prominently in the center. In a traditional longhouse, it rests on the sacred Kpan, a long wooden bench.
Such is the drum’s authority that no one is permitted to casually touch its surface or beat it for amusement.
Before it can be played, the owner must perform a ritual offering of a chicken, a jar of rice wine and some porridge to seek permission from the spirits.
The person allowed to beat the drum is also carefully chosen. Only its true owner or a respected village elder or leader has the right to sound its sacred rhythms.
A sacred sound woven into Vietnamese life
Even in an age dominated by electronic music, traditional drums retain a unique place in Vietnamese culture.
“The sacred sound of the drum is deeply embedded in the memory of Vietnamese people, everywhere and at every stage of life,” artisan Pham Tri Trong said.
Each rhythm carries its own social message. One sequence of three beats signals the beginning of a joyful occasion, while three sequences totaling nine beats, sounding through the stillness, call descendants to return to their ancestral home.
The drum accompanies an extraordinary range of emotions: the excitement of a new school year, the stirring rhythms associated with patriotism, and the mournful beats that accompany a person on their final journey.
For collector Nguyen Minh Tam, the deep, powerful drumbeat of the Central Highlands is the call of the mountains and forests, a spiritual thread connecting the life of a village from past to present.
More than musical instruments, drums shaped by generations of craftspeople have become a means of communion, binding communities together and preserving elements of Vietnam’s cultural identity for generations to come.
Vietnamnet.vn
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