Note to Correspondents

DRUM EXHIBITION TO COMMEMORATE VICTIMS OF SLAVERY, TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

OPENS AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS TODAY, 24 MARCH

 

An exhibition, “Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum”, will be formally launched in the North-East Gallery of the Visitors Lobby at 6 p.m. today, 24 March.

The exhibit, which includes never-before-displayed cultural items, is organized in remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, in line with General Assembly resolution A/RES/62/122, which proclaimed 25 March the International Day for the commemoration.

Designed to illustrate the drum’s unique and lasting significance as a link between descendants of African slaves and “mother” Africa, the exhibit focuses on its journey from Africa to the Americas, throughout the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted about four centuries.  The drum collection on display includes a wide array of secular, sacred, religious and non-religious, ceremonial, entertainment and talking drums mainly from Cameroon and the Caribbean.  Also on show will be drums belonging to the late legendary Nigerian master drummer, Babatunde Olatunji.

For this exhibit, the Government of Cameroon has dispatched to New York a delegation of 30 artists, specialists and officials headed by Culture Minister Ama Tutu Muna.  One of the artists is 76-year-old drummer Pauline Andela Tsala, one of the last practitioners of the talking drum tradition, renowned for her extraordinarily rare ability to decipher and translate rhythms and patterns of drum beats, much like breakers of the Morse code.

A very special item flown in from Cameroon is the Ndek, a 230-year-old drum weighing 400 kilograms and believed to be the “soul” of the Gounoko people in the country’s north-western region.  The rare sacred drum was used to transmit signals warning Gounoko youth within a 10-mile radius to flee impending wars and slave traders.

Before permitting the authorities to collect the Ndek and ship it to New York, the Gounoko King (Fon) presided over a special ceremony which set preconditions, including a prohibition against anyone beating it and a commitment by the authorities to return it promptly and safely home to the Cameroonian grasslands.  To facilitate that safe return, the Gounoko made the symbolic gesture of “lending” the authorities half the road to the community hub, thereby clearing, in a spiritual sense, all potential obstacles to the Ndek’s safe return.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka, Culture Minister Muna and Howard Dodson, Executive Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a partner in the exhibit, will all speak at the opening ceremony in the Visitors Lobby, United Nations Headquarters, 46th Street and First Avenue.

For more information, please contact Jan Arnesen, Outreach Division, Department of Public Information, +1 212 963 8531, arnesen@un.org; and Michel Ndoh, Ministry of Culture, Cameroon, +1 646 296 8812, mndoh@yahoo.fr.

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For information media • not an official record