Station: [53] Friction Drum (Lounuat)

Did you hear the sound I make?

I have a range of three notes, which Europeans call G, C and E. Can the sound I make even be called music? Originally, I was used at wakes, when someone had died. In New Ireland, I’m known as a kulepaganeg. You might translate that as "to bewail there" or "to lament". Another name of mine, lounuat, may derive from both "lament" and "west", because during a wake, there was lamenting, and the world of the dead is thought to be in the west, where the sun sets. And the person who collected me called me Gulépa.

My notes are produced by running a hand across my tongues. And if the hand is rubbed with resin first, or if it’s sufficiently damp, it will make the tongues vibrate. That’s why European musicologists call me a friction idiophone. An idiophone is an instrument that creates sound in and of itself. I’m also known as a friction drum.

Although there are several copies of me, as a type, I am unique. Nowhere else in the world are any related instruments known. In fact, my existence used to be a secret. Women and uninitiated men were not allowed to see me, only to hear me. Equally secret were the places where I was made and where I was played.

Some say my sounds were thought to be the voice of someone recently dead, who lamented having left the world of the living. But often people just thought they were hearing ghostly voices.