THE ART OF THE DRUM: THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL DYNAMIC OF DRUMMING AND DRUM CRAFTING IN FIJI, JAPAN, INDIA, MOROCCO AND CUBA JESSE BROWNER-HAMLIN THE BRISTOL FELLOWSHIP HAMILTON COLLEGE WWW.THEARTOFTHEDRUM.BLOGSPOT.COM AUGUST 2007 – AUGUST 2008 2 In the original parameters of my Bristol Fellowship, I aspired to investigate the religious and spiritual dynamic of drumming and drum crafting in Fiji, Japan, India, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago. As any academic will attest, field research tends to march to beat of its own drum, if you will. The beauty of my fellowship was that I could have conducted the research in just about any country in the world. Music is everywhere; and moreover, drums are the oldest instrument known to man. Along the way, I modestly altered the itinerary: in the end, I conducted research in Fiji, Japan, India, Western Europe, Morocco and Cuba. It truly was a remarkable experience to have full autonomy over my research: I am infinitely grateful that the Bristol Family and Hamilton College (represented by Ginny Dosch) gave me the freedom to modify my itinerary as I saw fit. To be successful while conducting field research, you need to be flexible. While several of my hypotheses from my proposal were examined and tested, I often found myself in unscripted situations. The daily unpredictability of the fellowship is what makes it such a profound and exciting experience, as every day is an adventure. With the blessing of technology, this fellowship was carried out in “real time.” Because I actively maintained a website, www.theartofthedrum.blogspot.com, my research and multimedia were posted almost instantaneously, and thus, my family and friends back in the States could read about my experiences, see my pictures and watch my videos. On that note, the prospect of disseminating field research vis-à-vis technology is fascinating: on my YouTube account, I have uploaded 205 videos from my fellowship research, and as I write this, my videos have been viewed 251,309 times. It is amazing to think that over two hundred fifty thousand people have seen what I saw… 3 Of course, there are countless people who deserve to be thanked for assisting me throughout the preliminary application process to the preparation prior to my departure to the field research itself. To compose that list in full would be an impossible task; but, I want to thank the following people: Ted and Jamie Bristol, Ginny Dosch, Jay Williams, Noriko Fuku, Yoshimi Takagi, Gen Matsui, K. Chandran, Amine Chabi, Younes Boumehdi, Adil Hanine, and of course, my family. The Bristol Fellowship is much more than an enriched, academic field survey: it is test of personal character and perseverance. Undoubtedly, the fellowship forces the individual to step out of his or her comfort zone. In all modesty, I am proud of myself for having completed the Bristol Fellowship. I am so humbled to have had this extraordinary experience. Whenever I reminisce, I simply cannot believe that everything really happened: often I find myself longing to return to my life as a nomadic Bristol Fellow. It is impossible to condense such an eventful year into a single account, but, in this text, I have tried my best. Here, I present to you an abridged version of my writings from my website: in this account, I have selected my favorite stories from my Bristol Fellowship. As you already know, you can find the full version of my chronicles on my website. Outside of the obvious grammatical corrections, I have refrained from seriously editing these entries, as I wanted to preserve the original spirit of these writings. Furthermore, I wanted to make my writing as accessible as possible; hence, I tried to steer clear from the dryness of a “religious studies in ethnomusicology” academic mentality. With that as a preface, please understand that many of these writings are informal. An audio compilation of the music I encountered throughout the year is included: this is a very small sample of the music I acquired, but these selections are my favorites. While reading this memoir, I would recommend listening to the CD. Please also note the 4 accompanying photographs: from almost five thousand pictures I took, I have complied a collection of my eighty or so favorites. Even after a year of in-depth field research, I still have many questions, and know there is so much more for me to learn on this subject matter. To quote a Red Hot Chili Peppers song: “The more I see / The less I know.” This maxim couldn’t be more applicable to my research. Yet, it is undeniable – and unquantifiable – that I learned so much throughout the course of the year. The places I went, the music I heard, the friendships I forged, the unforgettable things I saw; all of these experiences will never leave me. Thank you so much for granting me the privilege to have this opportunity. Enjoy! ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// PART ONE: THE FIJI ISLANDS August 21, 2007 After a grueling series of flights, I arrived in Nadi, which is on the Western coast of Viti Levu (Fiji’s biggest island) at about 5am. After gathering my bag and clearing customs, I then switched my domestic ticket from Nadi to Suva (the capital city on the Eastern coast of Viti Levu) from an 8:45am to a 7:00am flight. The plane (if you can call it that) was powered by propeller and only had fifteen seats. But that’s not the funny part: I was the only one on it. There were two pilots and a stewardess and myself. Very VIP. I can get used to traveling like that. Already, in just a short few hours, I have made some headway into my research in Suva. During my taxi ride from the Nausori (Suva) airport to the city, I made a – potentially – excellent contact. After explaining the core of my research to my driver, a very friendly Hindu named Jiten, he invited me to a traditional Hindu wedding this upcoming 5 weekend. Should this come together, it will be a great opportunity to observe the musical dynamic of a Hindu wedding ceremony. Furthermore, after exchanging numbers, Jiten also graciously offered that if I want to attend a Sunday church service in a village, he would gladly arrange that, as well. It should be noted that a typical Christian Fijian mass has a tremendous musical essence to it. It is conceivable that the musicality of Christian Fijian service demonstrates how Fijians integrated elements of their own indigenous religion to Christianity. Surely, the Methodist missionaries in the 1800s did not preach the Bible with song and dance...In any event, hopefully I will be able to attend a mass to see for myself. Although I have only scratched the surface of the city, my immediate impression is that it is a quaint, easy-going city. The intimacy of the city is quite apparent: while in the taxi, Jiten said hello (in passing) to a number of people, young and old. It’s nice to see that even in the “big” city of Fiji, there is still a community feel. What is really separates Suva from the rest of Fiji – aside from the fact that it is the largest city – is that there are almost no tourists here. Foreigners come to Fiji for the beaches and fancy (isolated) resorts. Just about every Western couple I saw on the plane was either on a honeymoon, or an older, retired couple: while I cannot fully assert that these individuals just came to Fiji for the beaches, it is safe to say that tourism is minimal in Suva. As Jiten said, “The foreigners come from a big city; so why would they want to see another big city on their holiday?” August 23, 2007 Yesterday was my first full day in Suva. After exploring most of the city, I took a cab to the University of the South Pacific, the largest university in the South Pacific. The campus is aesthetically astounding: it is very lush and has a wide array of tropical flora. The most beautiful aspect of the campus was the botanical garden: it made me appreciate just how tremendously different the natural environment in Fiji is from New York. 6 After wandering around the campus, I discovered the library; but unfortunately, there was a lack of texts on Fijian music (let alone of drumming). That being said, I was not disappointed, as I am not in Fiji to conduct research in a library: this fellowship provides me the unique opportunity to do actual field research. All in all, it was very nice to familiarize myself with the USP campus. After spending the afternoon at USP, I returned back to my hotel for a short nap, to rest up for the weeklong, annual Hibiscus Festival. Well, I guess the jetlag finally caught up with me, as I fell asleep at six and woke up just after midnight. I will go to the Hibiscus Festival tonight, as I missed last night’s celebrations. August 23, 2007 I woke up rather early on Thursday, as I technically went to bed at 6pm on Wednesday night. (Just to clear up any potential confusion, Fiji is 17 hours ahead of the East Coast, so that basically means I am a whole day ahead of all of you). After writing some journal entries, I wandered around the city, poking in and out of record shops, which Suva has a plethora of. I bought a CD of an Indo-Fijian tabla player, and also of the first Indo-Fijian reggae band (the album is twenty years old, so it’s nothing groundbreaking but still does sound pretty neat) from a record store called Procera Music.