The seven-drum band

A Lango drum band had seven drums, and only men played them.

• The atimu was a tall, narrow drum with the highest note. The player hung it from his neck and held it between his knees, beating it with the flat of his hands.
• Six round drums stood in a row against a log: the min bul (“mother drum”), with the lowest note, the adadang, and four atin bul (“child drums”). Two musicians knelt before them and beat them with small sticks, sharing the work between them.
• The drums were made from the trees etek, apok, abata or yago, and covered with the skin of a bull calf, waterbuck or elephant. The atimu was covered with monitor-lizard skin. A full set cost one large bull.
• They were tuned before use by warming the skins in front of a fire.

The notes of the seven drums went down a scale from the atimu to the min bul. Boys learned the patterns by tapping a set of seven sticks stuck in the ground, cut to the same notes.

Source: J. H. Driberg, The Lango: A Nilotic Tribe of Uganda (London, 1923), pp. 87–88 and 125–126; public domain. It describes life about a hundred years ago as a colonial administrator saw it, so customs have changed and some may be told differently today. Elders and families are invited to correct it and add what they know.