Water Drumming
While researching for different human engagements with rivers, I had come across a documentary about water drumming; “Water Drums: An ancestral Encounter” (Duque, 2009) and I was curious about how groups of women interact with the river by singing and drumming the water.
During the art residency by the forest in Ayrshire, Scotland, I had hoped to try drumming the water in the river with several of my friends, but unfortunately, as is often typical in Scotland, the enjoyable sunny weather turned to rain and it became quite cold, so I was the only person to venture into the cold river water. Although it could not be a group activity, I tried drumming the water in the river, which was also filmed by placing a waterproof GoPro on the bed of the river to film up towards the sky. As the water was cold, I could only manage about 20 minutes drumming the water, but it was enough to realise the attraction of beating or swiping the water like a drum. The types of reverberating sounds of the water were endless and again I felt I was working with the currents of the water, to make an extra difference to sound. Slapping the surface of the water gave a higher pitch than swiping the water at different depths and I could understand that as a group drumming the water together would bring a community of women closer while having fun to dance the rhythms of water. Unfortunately, the cold water and cold grey summer day in Scotland was not so conducive to enjoy the cooling tendencies of water and I would have needed to wear a wetsuit to remain more than 20 minutes in the river. I did, however, find the whole process exhilarating and it was a good physical workout. Drumming against the resistance of water was tiring, but it felt quite a challenge to receive such varying sounds from the river, which could be manipulated by a different stroke in the water. It made perfect sense that water drumming is really a group experience. At the same time the cold Scottish river water was not conducive for many people to get really wet while drumming. Also, there was no traditional connection to drumming water in Scotland, unlike the ancestral homes of water drumming in Cameroon, Venezuela, Columbia and Vanuatu as shown in Dunque’s film (2009), which mentioned many times, the ancestral nature of drumming the water. The women who did drum water, talked about how they learned from their mothers and it was something after they had washed their clothes, bathing or went fishing in the river. So, the ancestral homes of water drumming had many more active connections the river, including living in a hot humid environment.
Overall, I saw a lot of possibility with water drumming to engage with different groups of people and their local river, however the cold river water in Scotland also was a drawback, and I was also unsure how this could be related back to water policy guidelines.