Word: drumming
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...years the doomful sound of drumming in the Congo night struck white men weak with fright. Black tribesmen, pounding out an ominous drum language of their own, threatened death to pale interlopers...
...late the white man's telephone has made many tribesmen lose respect for their ancient art of drum conversation. They have forgotten their drum vocabulary, the drum names given them at birth...
From Stanleyville, Belgian Congo, Chicago Daily Newsman George Weller last week told how a young British Baptist missionary had gone so far native as to revive drum talking. John Carrington, 29, learned the drum tongue from a tattooed old drum master, Lifindiki Tuaytolo, freely translated as Quarrelsome Smith. Missionary Carrington and Quarrelsome Smith taught young tribesmen how to converse with a two-toned hollowed wood drum...
Newsman Weller guessed that Drummer Carrington's enthusiasm might preserve drum talking for at least a few more years in the Stanleyville neighborhood. But even in Africa change is inevitable. Today, when Quarrelsome Smith wishes to refer with his drums to a white man, he politely beats: "White man spirit from the forest." In his youth he would have walloped: "Death on the river...
Mattatuck Drum Corps, from nearby Waterbury, paraded in Revolutionary uniforms, rattling loud tattoos. Traffic Cop Arnold Belanger dressed up like George Washington. The Rev. Rockwell Harmon Potter, dean of Hartford Theological Seminary, read a prologue. But, in spite of this whoop-dee-do, West Hartfordians' emotions were mixed. They had been mixed ever since Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski had first suggested adorning West Hartford with his statue of Noah Webster...