THE VALUE OF AFRICAN CULTURE IN WORSHIP: THE CASE OF DRUMS IN SDA AMONG THE BETIS IN CAMEROON

Patrick Anani Etough

Universit Adventiste Cosendai, Cameroon.

AbstractThis article aims to reconcile the use of drums (nkoul) in worship by enhancing and correcting how it is played today in Eastern Cameroon. By examining how the Bible distinguished ritual and non-ritual music performances, the article offers a constructive approach to incorporate also another model, while keeping with the Word of God. The conclusion is that African traditions, most part of time, parallel the music of the Bible. The main questions are how and when drums and tambourines could be used in Church liturgy amid the betis? One of the effects of the Colonization has been negative to worship styles in general. It has caused the breakdown of traditional forms of worship. With the missionary impact, Christians mostly use Western approaches to music rather than traditional. For the main part, Christian music was imposed via spiritual superiority. Through repeated performances, as other traditional churches, Adventists, have internalized Western music as biblical norms; consequently, worship in most part of Africa is more Europeanized. The Western way has also colonized worship styles in Cameroon, more specifically, among the Betis.

Keywords

Worship, drums tambourines, music, temple, Western music, African musicDo not sing like someone else; do not dance like someone else.

Cameroonian Proverb, Mafa

IntroductionThe Professor James Park, then lecturer at Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies in 2013, after a missionary Journey in Lukanga, Congo Kinshassa once told that he was so surprised to find that African SDA Churches were restricted to Western hymns during the Sabbath worship. This is not so an isolated case, because of its missionary roots, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cameroon, as most part of Africa, sings passionately more western hymns than African songs. Church members sing rarely from their vernacular tongues and traditions, and this is even true in villages contexts and culture. Music style amid SDA has always been dominated by Western standards since the first missionary came. Also, Cameroonian music, for most of westerners, lacks of any given organization that rest on specialized guild, which is characterized by noise, dance, and spontaneousity. Moreover, in the writing of the Spirit of Prophecy, drums are not well represented. For example, Ellen G. White also states that in the future, Just before the close of probation, there will be shouting, with drums, music, and dancing. The senses of rational beings will become so confused that they cannot be trusted to make right decisions. And this is called the moving of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit never reveals itself in such methods, in such a bedlam of noise. This is an invention of Satan to cover up his ingenious methods for making of none affect the pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, and sanctifying truth for this time.

An example of depiction of Western SDA of African music is when African Caribbean steel drums sounded at the 2000 General Conference Session in Toronto, it caused considerable consternation and controversy within the denomination. Probably, this is because of the direct connection with idols worship.Statement of the ProblemThe Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cameroon is still in the stage of imitation of Western worship. Although missional context should also be taken into account the cultural life where ministry takes place, music has not always been taught cross culturally by missionaries amid the SDA Churches in Africa in general and in particular in Cameroon. This is much emphasized by ethnomusicologist for other traditional churches. The image is ranging through a variety of independent churches to missionary led churches. Wilson-Dickson suggests one of the main reasons why such a debilitating attitude passed to African Christians:

There was fear that music might become a real force in the lives of those involved in it. It was, for instance, wholly reprehensible to allow music to become rhythmic and exciting enough to invite a bodily response, so its physical dimension was banned from worship. . . . The permissible Christian music that remained was (and happily still is) a narrow and poverty-stricken offshoot from the main cultural stem of western culture, reflecting and tainting the western style of Christian worship.

French missionaries would introduce their types of music, which was familiar to their culture. However, the goal of effective mission is to make the message of Jesus understood among the heathen (Matt 28) and to use responsibly their culture and contexts in a way that is shaped by biblical imperatives. The challenge of twenty first century should be to understand how differing music might be shaped through the Bible. After more than 100 years since the first encounter between western Adventism and Cameroonian traditional religion, it seems that music has always had a key function in worshipping God. Although in the rural mission, churches have incorporated somehow hand drums into Church worship. But this has not been done without difficulties.The sense of the music found in particular people in terms of both sound and behavior (King 2004, 296) is quite difficult to understand. Each mission has to investigate music and culture, since African music affects human life. Such analysis would help to understand contrast and differentiate between musical style and praxis from an African point of view. What is the music context in all its components? How missionaries would have avoided imposed outside perceptions about Cameroonian music.

In the present paper investigation of key components of the use of the drums and tom tom in Betis culture in Cameroon is in focus. What are the key components of their music and main instruments? Three main quests are in focus:a) What are their ideas about the use of drums or tom tom?

b) What are the activities involved with worship with drumming?

c) What are style, genres, and words, movements attached to it?Then the bible would serve to correct, and nurture the use of drums within the Church amid the Beti in Cameroon. In most of African worship, however, dancing, singing and drumming make part of common worship; it is an integral part of supplication, whereas in the European Christian view, dancing has been regarded as a profane act. Although, this paper is a regional case study, it is good to be reminded that AfricaNorth, West, East, and Southreflect much of the diversity of the continents culturality: Representative study of one region may give insight to the rich diversity but also for factors of differences that cross the boundaries of each region:

Image 1. Map of West AfricaWest Africa possesses a multiple layered polyrhythmic type of music in the whole Africa. There is a wide range of musical instruments, performances, which are attached to one heritage influenced by Muslim, animistic or traditional interchanges. The West African was most typically organized in early kingdom and nations states in Africa. This paper concentrates on what we call the Fang or Beti-Pahouin, which are disseminated in South Cameroon, north and center of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, Central Africa and Congo. Regionally, West Africa divides into two geographical entities: savanna and forest. The groups of the savannas were mostly established in empires and nations states and are more akin to Islamic influence. Their musical culture is also uniform, because of the highly social organization, role and status of musicians, types of instruments and performances.However, although Cameroonian musicians make use of large variety of musical instruments, such as harps, lutes, lyres, and zither to name few, this study mostly is interested to the drums and tom tom. Rhythm is attached to drums. Moses Serwadda and Hewitt Pantaleoni have shown how drumming and dancing link: A drummer will indicate the dance motions sometimes as a way of explaining and teaching a [drum] pattern. (1968:52). Drummers help dancers in their movement who try to pattern the body movement to the rhythms of the drums. The system of von Hornbostel and Sachs (1961) classify the drums as an idiophones, which is ethnomusicologically accepted: Cameroon, as in Africa, musicians draw upon many kinds of instruments. Drums are best known in various shapes to many people around the world: goblet, hourglass, conical, barrel, cylindrical, and frame (tambourine). They range from the smallest handheld to the large instruments.

Image 2. African music instruments: top left, membranophones (Akan drums from Ghana); top right, lamellaphones (akongos from northeastern Uganda); lower left, chordophones (nzenze from northeastern Uganda); lower right, aerophone (chivoti from southern coast of Kenya).Importance of the ProblemOne has to realize how important is the culturally appropriate music for worship and witness. It is naively believed that biblical accounts of secular and sacred music can be a taken as a cross-cultural model for all without discriminating regarding the style of music in worship. For most of us, songs and dance is womens province into any society. And in all societies use music in rites and ceremonies, the moderns may as well just impart the music found in their own culture without using a proper model.

In the history of Seventh-day Adventist, the introduction of Western hymns contributed to a lost of African identity and often contributed to a truncated understanding of the Gospel. Thus, there is a need for a development of culturally appropriate and biblical music for African Church in general and for Beti in particular in order to foster biblical faith.

However, while it is true that the people of the Bible can be perceived as representative of any culture as a whole, we ought not to forget that their culture received most of Gods light and guidance for more that 3000 years. It did not remain static throughout its long history, thus, we can se the fluctuations that arises in their worship style and usage of musical instruments. This is important to inform the model this article proposes at the conclusion. The purpose of the article is to bring the Bible into the larger discussion of a musical instruments usage in Cameroon. This could illustrate how passages featuring music can still inform the modern Church and delineate the important factors of cultic and non-cultic songs. Cultural Problems and Identification

The Beti

Although the Beti-Pahuin can be found in the rest forest area such as Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, there is more than 20 subtribes with a common ancestry and history (Beti, Fang, and Bulu). Their mutual dialect is known as the Beti or the Ewondo language, which unites them among other things such as intermarriages. The Beti are generally found in southern and Eastern Provinces and are about 1 million of the Cameroonians. They are organized in patrilineal kingships, where the paternal family live together in a village, and several related villages make their clans. The chief of the clan is somehow regarded as the traditional chief and as the religious authority. The Beti were known as skilled workers in wood and ivory and are still particularly noted for the lively ritual and festive masks associated with songs and dances, even though modernization has swiped away much of their cultural and traditional heritage by defoliation because of Christianity to such an extent that their traditional craft principally is now found in countryside areas for supplying just the tourist market.

While most Beti are mostly catholic or few are converted to evangelical churches or Adventists faith, in practice, they are equally engaged in both Christianity and their traditional worship. No matter how long they attend the church and worship God, this does not always prevent several to turn the mind to their various secret societies or to consult the traditional healers, if God did not heal them. Indeed, some Betis have dual religion and are still deeply involved in the indigenous religion whereby sacrifices and rituals are performed to appease the gods who are called for healing, protect, and bless them.

Adventism in Cameroon is highly westernized. The process of decolonization of knowledge, which began with the collapse of European colonial empires in the wake of the Second World War, did not affect the philosophical worldview amid Adventist in Cameroon. Western spiritual values have not been publicly denigrated or distorted in the education, for the African theology has not reached Adventist in Central Africa per se. For example, African languages are rarely used even in rural area, the main language of worship is French or English, then may follow a translation. Foreign languages and foreign methods are still in use, although it does not fully address the real issues of African lives, including colonial oppression. The Philosophy of Bantu, which endeavor the use of traditional religion and wisdom as the foundation for theology or the unveiling of cultural unity did not pervade as such SDA Churches in Cameroon. There is an impressive range of different drums in Africa, as well as in Cameroon. Use of Drums in Cameroon

If a musical instrument could represent African music, it should be the drum. For, it is the musical instrument most commonly spread and found in Africa. It belongs to the family of membranophone family of musical instruments. The sound of membranophone is made through the vibration of a stretched membrane or skin. Aphorisms sung by choruses or drums, rattles, harps, zithers, and xylophones would accompany soloists during initiation. Also, drums are the most of prominent symbols in Cameroonian religious rituals. Usually, drums are not played by women, but by youth or experienced adults.Because of the derision and mockery of the missionaries, drumming has almost disappeared in African religious and non-religious circles. We hear seldom drums being played about in the countryside; even singers exceptionally would use them. Among the Beti at Nanga Eboko and in the south, drums have been incorporated only in recent years, after the missionaries have left. What is prevalent is the modern use of musical instruments. However, there seems to have occasions whereby drums and xylophones could be played at Church gathering, If so, how, and when? Drums can produce a broad spectrum of timbres. Church ensemble does not include, as in Uganda, of the processional drums. The hourglass drum of West Africa glides is not also represented within the Church. Two different types of drums are generally played in the ensemble with rattles.View of the African Primitive MusicWestern Missionaries shared, for most of them, that their music was the pride of their advancement. After all, missionaries were from a more high civilization than the African, and their music was understood to be more organized. The view of western missionaries from the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (c. 1469-1524) who led the first expedition round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 was at times scornful. For example, a witness from 1725 to 1727 by Father Jean Baptiste Labat who authored less than three works on Africa, amounting to eleven volumes altogether, which make use of documents available to him. For him, African polyrhythm was seen in scornful way, The Drums which they [the Africans] use in their armies are the same that they employ in their music; if one can properly give the name of music or of symphony to the charivaria that they produce with their instruments. Sylvain Meinard Xavier de Golberry from 1785 to 1787 made also prejudice to African music, this instrument is too complicated to have been invented by the Negros, ignorant of the principles of music, and only to produce on the balafon a confused and detestable noise. All the blacks of West Africa have instruments; but they are the most barbarous musicians in the world.

Missionaries adopted this narrow and ethnocentric view of music. They believed that polyphonic style of music was exclusively part of Westerns European music. This music was independent from movements. However, until recently voices started to be heard from ethnomusicology studies. African music has been misrepresented and need to have an adequate representation. African are as well as their Europeans musicians counterpart are able to have polyphonic styles and it is not really true that African music is discordant medley of sounds. In what, pejoratively Western musicians call primitive music, sense and value are paramount qualities . . . In this interweaving with motions and emotions, music is not a reflex, remote and pale, but an integral part of lie. Christoph von Fuerer puts it differently when he says that African music resounds in the darkness, gripping the singers and blending them one and all, till they finally merge in the unity of the dance. This rhythm is more than art, it is the voice of mans primeval instinct, the revelation of the all-embracing rhythm of growth and decay, of love, battle and death.

To avoid any queer and often foolish description of primitive music, which often ridicules the very notion of men made at the image of God, one has to pay attention to Claude Levy-Strauss advice: Il [un people primitif] peut, dans tel ou tel domaine, tmoigner dun esprit dinvention et de ralisation qui laisse loin derrire lui les russite des civilises.

Music of Western African as Cameroonian music has a history and it is a precious and dignified part of culture, and as such, it demands respect. And God did not send missionaries to destroy peoples culture, but to preserve what can be crucified in Christ. African music had been threatened with extermination. Sachs remarks, The melodies of primitive man, an organic, essential part of his spiritual life, fall victim to Christian missionaries, Soviet agents, European colonizers, and American oil drillers. And primitive as well as folk melodies are hopelessly succumbing to a technical age with military service and factory work, with rapid buses, planes, and cars, with phonographs, radios, and television sets. Verrier Elvin and Shamrao Hivale lament to this situation when they say, One of the most tragic things about contact of the aboriginal with civilization is the destruction of art and culture that so frequently follows. Whatsoever can be said, this paper agrees with Pierre Billard, when he says, The Western musical tradition, which is the subject of teaching in the Academies, cannot be the whole of all of the music of the world . . . It is only one musical tradition among others, and certainly not the best of all the music of this world.

The ancient use of DrumsHistory

The earliest development of drums began in West Asian civilizations of the third and second millennia B.C. An Akkadian cylinder seal date about the twenty-fourth century BC has the earliest iconographic representation of the drum type. Similarly in Egypt, iconographic sources also attest much of it.

Drums have usually accompanied or regulated the steps of dancers and marchers and at times it was used to keep the rhythm. Drums present in Ancient civilization a higher form of art. They used hollow log of wood or in Africa the empty gourd to implement their rhythmic and tonal instrument of music. As in the most ancient societies such as Egyptian-Sumerian-Akkadian (3000-500 BC), in Africa, dance respond to rhythm as its first expression. As such it remains the main reason for the use of percussion, which is indisociably from any primitive society with percussion along with music and lyric in most of daily life situation. Thus, Drums would be traced first to ancient Near East area where four types of percussions were known (Kettle drums (lilissu), hour-glass-drums (Sumerian, BALAG), large timbrels (alu), small round (adapa) or square timbrels), and Egyptian civilization in their hieroglyphics scriptures often depicted drums. The tom tom or the great drum-Religion and Speech amid the betiThe nkul ou tom tom is the main mean of ancient communication to the Beti. It is a monoxide instrument with a slit that gives two pitches. It is made, generally, with two big trees of the rain forest: the ebe (or mukumari) and the mbel or mbee (padouk) of 84 cm long.

Image 3. The Nkul of the Betis people

This last is also known as esil or esi (examiner) when it is cut in this purpose. This tree is taken to be a life giver, thats why the tom tom is hollowed out and it is linked to a laid man who speaks through is mouth. A slit divides the two lips of about 26 cm with respect to a bridge (Otat nkul) between a median and regulating tongues a stab of machete.

Patiently, the craftsman break the wedges inside the nkul by a wood scissor and of huge mallet then brings out the two lips, to polish the whole thing, and to make the median bridge thinner et separate it in two tongues with turned red by fire. This hard work is done with specific ritual intended to make the tom tom to speak well. The kaolin serves to whiter the extremities; one of the wedges is taken far away in order to allow its voice to go farther. The tom tom is smoked out with a creeper wowogo (the one one hears), with crunch leafs to be able to communicate its sonorities virtues to the tom tom. Then it is made dry into the sun. But, it will be fully dried up to 2 to 3 years. Then, just then, a name is given to the instrument.

Exemple: Ze ebere ebe ou Ee ebede ebe (le lopard mont sur larbre ebe)The initiation of the nkul is quite long, thats why this kind of communication loses progressively its way nowadays; still it has led astray more than one colonizer, when the Europeans came. They marveled to this means of exceptional communication, which can reach three or four kilometers, sometimes more, if the rainforest is not too thick. According to Zenker (Germand), the tom tom spoke continually in beti land, and one would telephon morning and in the evening for an yes or no. Important news, such as, death or birth were retransmitted over ten kilometers in few times. Indeed, modeling the pitch of the language and respecting the intensity and the rhythm, the nkul allow a full communication speech to those who are trained, and to change personal messages via an indicative ndan or endan, which affect all. To take up the pitch, that is, give a higher tone, Nkul wa ber. Play on it with strength is Ma bere nkul, making noise in the house, Nkul wa dun, this gives the impression that the nkul expresses itself when one plays on it. The nkul was invented before the coming and the crossing of the river Yom (Sanaga). According to the frequency of the use, the nkul is linked to the tongue, this invention originated from the Fang. Well known in Gabon, but it is not well developed amid the bulu.

The nkul had a socio cultural role, since it would be a means of important communication; this instrument had also another important function: it breaks the distance and socialized the solitude. It connected clans and families amid the betis, it allowed to be distant but at the same time benefit of the families. The nkul is the link and one of the best conservators of traditions. By repeating mnemonic syllables (which may or may not constitute lexically meaningful words), performers learn drum sequences and rhythmic patterns. In the rain forest from Cameroon to the D.R.C., large slit drums have served as talking drums, to send messages in speech cones. Second, the languages of the African continent have been much better and more systematically researched than the music; linguistic relationships unlock important chapters in African history and throw indirect light on music history.

Another kind of instrument is the drum in a trunk of the tree, which has a hole on both sides. The support is in form of tripod. The resonance comes from a skin of beasts, which without hair, strongly attached to the truck with wild cords. Nowadays, others kind of wire are used to make this kind of drum. The surface of the drum is slaked with six or nine knots drawn downward with small pieces of woods called mvaaga. Also, ethane fold replace the skin of beasts.

Esani of the Betis peopleDrum is attached to dance even in case of death. For example, the Esani, which is a warriors dance when an illustrious and brave older man dies, is still performed. It is a victorious dance, which consecrates life over death; it celebrates the name of the deceased. Its ritual serves to invite the deceaseds ancestors to come and bring him to the beyond, finally, it the esani permitted through an ordeal of the ngekembe and other incantations to check whether the offspring did not caused the death of their father. Use of Drums in Cameroon

Traditionally, African would use wood, rope, twine or antelope to make drums. There were drums in cylindrical and conical drums, barrels, hourglasses, waisted drums, goblets and footed drums, long drums, frame drums, friction drums, and kettledrums. In African traditional societies, drums play a predominant role. As musical instruments, they give the tempo of songs and dances during the festivities; however, they also play a preponderant role in social and religious rituals. Drums punctuate important phases of daily life such as birth, marriage, funerals, religious rituals, and hunts. To the Betis society, music is a language; their tom toms are real means of long distance communication. The talking drums transmit messages according to a precise code: Such rhythm would resound to call the men for building rural areas; when death strike the royal family, the name of the deceased would be given through drumming. The slit drum or woody drum, known as tom tom, may reach more than ten kilometers. Its acoustic resonance is indefinite. The Betis use one with tongues for producing two different sounds likening a spoken language. In fact, their drum, called the nkul or tam-tam (french), is the means of communication among the Beti. It is a drum shaped in a wood box with a slot giving two tones.Music pervaded most of every part of daily life in Cameroon as also with the Betis. At work, play, or worship do we find music led by drums to the present day. It is almost used at various ceremonies, rites of passages, dowry, and funerals. Also, drummers, in spiritual ceremonies, invoke the spirits of the ancestors of the village to appease them or to appeal the divinities to be possessed by them in traditional worship. Drumming is coupled with singing and dancing in worship while waiting for the divine, and before the mantic speeches. Thus, drumming, singing, and dancing are part of African traditional spiritual system of the Betis. The spirit of the ancestors, various deities, or the creator is invoked through these three mediums. Most of the independent and Pentecostal churches and various African denominations are found of these three mediums as base for their worship. Also, somehow, drumming is used amid SDA every Sabbath day before the offerings, or the sermon or the welcoming of invitees. In Cameroon, timbrels used in mourning, initiation and worship ceremonies require a ritual. They are sacred vessels, and as such, are kept secret.

Roles of drummers, singers, and Praise Singers

Drumming so far is gendered, for men of the community are responsible for performing it. Selected primarily on the basis of their skills to play the two types of drums, considerations such age and membership seems to be unimportant. There is no clear system of apprenticeship, since most of their talent is innate. Some members through their families are well renowned for their ability to rhythm the songs and the dances. In Cameron, it seems that drumming is also inherited. However, informal training arises at early an age, for some drummers claim also that they gained their skills by watching and imitating master drummers during their performances.

The Church, in the south and the east, incorporates drums and tom tom. During organized Church performances, drummers do not sing or step into the dance array by playing rhythms that correspond to the dancers steps and movements they are just helper of dancer performers. Singing woman dancing are usually women; they are called mintophic, composed mostly of older women in the Church. Their role is to praise God while in movements. Songs are generally an appeal to spiritual responsibilities; this is clear in most of their song:

Aluba a nyolo aluba

He he he he esani heNdo bentari ya ana

He he he he esani he

There is a reciprocal relationship between music and dance and between dancers and the mintophic choir. This interdependence is based on the fact that each has to play his/her part as the community expect. Rhythm amid rural Adventist Churches is only played while the deacons take tithes and offerings and at times when the members leave out. Whether or not the performances meet the standards acceptable in a community may depend on the degree of seriousness with which local musicians and mintophic regards their efforts. Thus, music, dance and drums go hand to hand, as John Stainer puts it, rhythm is the dance of sound, as dancing is the rhythm of movement. Drumming is at the base of the animation of the performance. Drums impart a sense of the sacred to the daily and sacramental life of Beti. Differently of the Dschang peoples Artifacts, as skull of deceased ancestors and musical equipmentxylophones, drums, and flutesare kept in a secret place in the home of the eldest living male in each lineage. Music in the Old Testament Period

Class of Musical Instruments in the Bible

The Bible has at least a total of 146 verses dedicated to Music if we follow the count of E. Kolari, no less than 25 books of the Tanak mention musical instruments. We might find also at least 20 musical instruments in the Bible with or not attainable results as to the sens and the meaning of those instruments in modern research.Modern scholars have defined the three main class to which instruments belongs with some successes: (1) The plucked stringed instruments such as kinnor, nevel, asor, qaytros, pesanterin and sabbeka, (2) the two classes of wind instruments (a) natural horns (qeren or shofar, yovel, mholot, nhlot, double flute or pipe, mahol (single) flute), metallic horn (hatsotserah) and woodwind (halil, ugav, and mashroqita); (3) percussion instruments could be divided in two subclasses: (a) membranophones (only top in the Bible) and idiophones (menaanim, tseltselim/metsiltayim, metsillot, and paomonim). Table 1 and 2 summarize the class of musical instrument:Table 1. Class of String InstrumentsString (Plucked)

qtaros [qatros]psanternsabbkanevelassor

Table 2. Class of wind instrumentsWind

Natural Metallic horn Woodwind

qeren or shofar, yovelhatsotserahalil, ugav,

mholot, nhlot, double reed flute or pipe, mahol (single) flutemasroqta}

Table 3. Classes of percussion instrumentsPercussion

MembranophonesIdiophones

topmenaanim, tseltselim/metsiltayim, metsillot, and paomonim

Cultic and Non-cultic Music

Most of the temple music in the First Temple period was contributing in additional and hence subordinate to sacrificial rite (cf. 1 Chr 29: 21-25; 2 Chr 5:14; 7:3-7; 30:21). The priests were helped with sacred orchestra: 120 trumpeters, singers and cymbals and with the instruments of the songs (bikle hassr), which were musical instruments in praise of God (2 Chr 5:12-13; 2 Chr 23:13). These sacred instruments ensemble are attached to the Levites: nbalm wkinnorot umsiltayim harps, lyres and cymbals (or kle dawd 1 Chr 15:16; 2 Chr 29:27; 34:12; Neh 12:36). According to Eric Werner, all Temple music irrespective of the period was nothing more than a accessory to its sacrificial rite. The Hebrew bible has a good deal of information concerning the social and spiritual function of musical instruments. There is the accompanying ritual of processions to the Temple, Temple services, and the ceremony of the court. These can be divided into cultic and non-cultic rituals. In this section, the First temples practice of music is in Focus. The Bible situates the First temple, commonly called Salomons Temple about 950 BC, which stood until 587 when Nebuchadnezzar (605-561 BC) ordered it to be destroyed. The temple laid in ruin during the time of the Babylonian captivity (587/6-539 BC). Worship at Jerusalem temple was sacrificial at first although other cultic worship place were known in Ancient Israel and Judah: The house of the Lord at Shiloh (1 Sam 1:1-9), and also, the shrine at Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs 12:26-30), the Hill of God at Gilgal (1 Sam 10:5-8), the cultic places in the neighborhood of Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs 12:31-32), and the tabernacle of the LORD in the high place that was at Gibeon (1 Chr 16:39-40). These high places or place of worship had a bamah where sacrifices were offered. When he was faithful to the Lord, Solomon made a great high place at Gibeon were thousand burnt offering were offered on the altar (1 Kgs 3:4). Apart from the altar of the Lord at Jerusalem, Salomon, on the wake of his unfaithfulness, built also altars east of Jerusalem and to the south for other gods (2 Kgs 23:9-14). The archeology brought also confirmation of this picture. Many temples were uncovered at Schechem (c. 1650-1550 BC), Megiddo (Late Canaanite period, c. 1400-1300 BC), Beer Sheba, Lachish (pre-exilic, from Monarchic period), Arad (from the time of Salomon) and Mamre in Hebron (postexilic).

The worship of the deity in these rival sanctuaries was different, for Gods presence was incorporeal and invisible. Its presence was in the Ark of the Covenant or Gods throne (Jer 3:17). When Jerusalem became the siege of Davidic kingdom, the Ark was removed to the city of David with all Israel rejoicing, music and dance, and sacrifices of seven bulls and seven rams (1 Chr 15:26), and then before God inside the tent Pitched for it, they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (1 Chr 16:1). When Salomon built the temple, the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies to indicate that Gods rest now in His sanctuary. Early in the sixth Century BC, the Ark disappeared in the Temple and was never be found (cf. Jer 3:16). Thereafter, the empty Holy of Holies was the symbol of Gods indwelling itself.

The task of removing the Ark of the Covenant was carried out in two stages. In the first attempts to Baale-Judah to the House of Abinadab where the Lord struck Uzzah dead, celebration took place as in Canaanite orchestral fashion with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals [footnote]. The phrase msahqm lipne halohm, Playing before the Lord show the playful tone of the occasion, for sahaq a by-form of sahaq means in the qal to laugh, to amuse, entertain with jests (cf. Judg 16:27), but in the intensive piel, to be merry (with singing and dancing in the round; 1 Sam 18:7; 1 Chr 13:8; 15:29; Jer 30:19; 31:4). The parallel passage does not give the same instruments:1 Chr 13:82 Sam 6:5

wdawd wkol-yisrael msahqm lipne halohm bkol-oz ubsrm ubkinnorot ubinbalm ubtuppm ubimsiltayim ubahsosrot:

wdawid wkol-bet yisrael msahqm lipne yhwh bkol se brosm ubkinnorot ubinbalm ubtuppm ubimnaanm ubselselm

David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, even with songs and with lyres, harps, tambourines, cymbals and with trumpets.(NAU)Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals. (NAU)

The Chronicler confounds bkol se brosm, all the instruments of juniper and bring the holem at the beginning and transposes the resh at the end of the word so as to have bkol se brosm, with all his strength and with songs; and the percussion instruments imna{an{m, rattle and hasosrot, trumpet (metallic long and straight instrument, LXX, ) and selselm, (LXX, )clanging cymbals are replaced with mesiltayim, disc cymbals in Chronicle. Disc cymbals were the type known by the time of the writing, whereas the trumpet, he justify the priestly character of the procession and of the sacrificial rites that accompanied it. It was for the chronicler as late in the Psalms, a sacred occasion commemorated with joy, loud noise, dance and merrymaking as in the time of the Festival (cf. Lev 23:24). Music served the purpose for dancing however; there is no mention of music played before the sacrificial rites. Plucked instruments, percussion instruments and the shofar constitute the core for procession.

While Chronicles contains a large quantity of musical information about music in the First Temple, scholars have doubted it because it is a postexilic production (about 350 BC) and they believe Chronicles to add supplementary information, which are not found in the period itself. Most scholars believe that Chronicles supplementary ads are maybe retrojected from the time when Chronicles were written.But in this paper, Chronicles is not only historically reliable concerning music, but also authoritative for the purpose of earlier testimonial of Hebrew text.The second attempt, three months later, to bring the Ark from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David gives a detail most important for our purpose. This time, the Levites, the bearers of the Ark would be included (1 Sam 6:13-14//1 Chr 15:26-27). 2 Sam 6:15 says that the Ark was brought with the shouting and the sound of the trumpet, whereas for the Chronicles, the horn, with the trumpets, with loud sounding cymbals, with harps and lyres (1 Chr 15:28). In spite of these additional musical instruments, which are more harmonizing than something else, both parallel passages agree that the percussion instrument was not there. The narrative portrays David as a priest, since he offered sacrifices (2 Sam 6:13) and whirled [mkarker] with all his might before the Lord. When David and all the people in procession, with joy, shout and dancing, they did so by means of playing of plucked-string instruments, various percussion instruments, and the shofar. However, the music accompanied most probably the dances, because they are never in association with the sacrifices both during the transport of the ark or when it came to rest in Jerusalem. In the Old Testament, stringed instruments

The music played with pipe or flute and tambourine are mostly played in non-sacrificial cultic context. It is usually played at night during festivals and during joyful processions to the Temple correspondingly. The drums that was played was the top timbrel, tambourine, a held and struck musical instrument, especially by dancing maidens. Usually associated with other musical instruments in sign of merriment, gladness (cf. Gen 31:27; Job 21:12), revelry (Isa 5:12; 24:8), exultation and triumph (Exod 15;20; Judg 11:34; 1 Sam 18:6; Isa 30:32; Jer 31:4). The top is the general term mostly stands for tambourines and small drums. We know example of this common instruments of percussion in ancient times from Egypt and Mesopotamian excavations. The fact that this percussion instrument is not listed among cultic instruments given by David (1 Chr 15:16-24; 16:4-6,42; 25:1-6), indicates that it was mostly played in non-cultic setting as the processions (1 Chr 13:8) in the night after or during festivals (Pss. 81:2; 149:3; 150:4).In Ps 149:3-5, the text reads and it is translated as such:yhallu smo bmahol btop wkinnor yzammru-lok-roseh yhwh bammo ypaer nawm bsuah:

yalzu hsdm bkabod yrannnu al-miskbotamLet them praise His name in dance; with timbrel and lyre let them chant His praises.

For the LORD delights in His people; He adorns the lowly with victory.

Let the faithful exult in glory; let them shout for joy upon their couches,

The music played with such instruments as pipe and flute are used for non-sacrificial cultic setting. The flute-pipe played is known as hall (plu. holahm); Joachim Braun suggests that it was a slender reed pipe, possibly single but more probably double with a mouthpiece in each pipe as the Ancient Near East archeology. Why do the use of drums and the flute were forbidden? Was it because they were noisy? If we scrutinize the book of Psalm, scholars suggest that at least 38 psalms be supposed to have been composed during the First Temple period and only 30 during the exile. These musical occurrences in many of these psalms confirm that vocal and instrumental music were played in the Temple as it was done in non-cultic setting. Psalms 43, 61, and 62 have evident sacrificial contexts. For music is played while offering sacrifices. And phrases such as: coming to your altar (43:4), paying vows (61:9) or entering Gods house with burnt offerings (66:13) allude to this.Pss 68, 81, and maybe Pss 95 and 118 confirm instruments such as timbrels and flute, in non-sacrificial cultic settings during processions. Psalm 68:25-26 says:

rau hlkoteka lohm hlkot el malk baqqodesqiddmu sarm ahar nognm btok lamot topepotThey see your processions, O God! The processions of my God, my king in the sanctuary (v. 25)In front are the singers followed by those who play musical instruments amidst the maidens who beat the timbrel (my translation, v. 26)

The term nognm in v. 25 is a cognate of nogan, which is as earlier than the pre-exilic biblical literature. It is likely that in processions cultic and non-cultic instruments can be used together. The stringed instruments being however unspecified here, does not preclude us to guess what kind of instruments were being played. The term unginotay and we will play music on stringed instruments (Esa 38:20), which is an accusative cognate is from the verb nagan referring to mocking song (Lam 3:63), this verb occurs in connection with song or singers (Ps 33:3; 68:25; Isa 23:16) and three times it is played in musical ensemble with the kinnr lyre and pre-exilic and exilic periods (1 Sam 16:16, 23 and Isa 23:26). Thus, without doubt here too, the lyre is understood here too.Psalm 68 shows that at non-sacrificial ritual, the participants were of mixed genre. The psalmist lists the participants in the processions as sarm singers, nognm players on stringed instruments, and lamot maidens who would give the beat of the procession with their drum. Music is part of the life and their absence implies death. When Gods reign would come the people of God will celebrate with music. Thats why Gods people would celebrate victory through non-cultic music. Smith shows how victory was celebrated, music song and the playing of hand drums and dancing were normal components of the celebrations. The music of the victors consisted of song in thanksgiving to the Deity (who was perceived as having granted the victory). Since Miriam celebrating Gods victory at the Red Sea (Exod 15:20-21) singing, dancing and percussion instruments were used to welcome the victor in 1 Sam 18:6-8: As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, to sing (lasur) and with double flute (whammholot), to meet King Saul, with tambourines (btuppm), with joy, and with sistrums (ubsalism).

The women were singing to one another (wattanenah) while dancing (hamsahqot), and they were saying: Saul has slain his thousands; David, his tens of thousands!Similar celebration are attributed to David in 1 Sam 21:12 and 29:5 as in Judges 11:34; it serves the purpose to acknowledge that the deity has granted His people the victory through his messenger; normally all consequence is that praise in body movements ware acceptable means of praising God, but not inside the Temple.Musical EnsemblesInstruments, in the Bible, can both used independently (mainly the sopar: Lev 25:9; Josh 6:4-6 etc.) or with non-homogeneous kind of harmonized instruments: plucked string instruments, kinnor lyre and nevel harp (Ps 57:8; 71:22), wind instruments, sopar horn and hsosrot trumpets (2 Chr 15.14; 98:6) and percussion, top tambourine and shallishim sistrum (1 Sam 18:6). There is also performance with heterogeneous kind of instruments: ubkinnorot ubinbalm ubtuppm ubimnaanm ubselselm in 2 Sam 6:5; . ktop wkinnor, and ugab flute in Job 21:12; an ensemble of 120 Levites choir with mesiltayim cymbals, nebalm, kinnorotin 2 Chr 5:12. At times the instruments are used to form a important band such as in the case of the prophets around the 1030-1010 BC (1 Sam 10:5); it would include three established or Canaanite orchestra groups of instruments in the Ancient Near East: strings (kinnor and nebel), woodwind (hall double reed) and percussion top. Whenever the Levites would be present in cultic or non-cultic rites, the same Canaanite orchestra would be used (string kinnor r and nebel; wind hsosrot, and percussion) lest the percussion would be changed with a non-beat instrument as the mesiltayim cymbals (cf. 1 Chr 15:28). The pagan ritual in the court at Babylon in the sixth Century BC under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II uses a similar orchestra with different kind of percussion, maybe because of the pomp of the event: string qtaros [qatros], psantern, and sabbka; brass qarna; wind masroqtaand sumponya. This orchestra is said to be formed of different kind of instruments (wkol zne zmara, vv.5,7,10,15).Model for the use of tom tom in Cameroonian context

If there is continuity between the music of the Temple with that of the of New Testament Church, then the fact that the tom tom resounds well and strong, it means that it can be used to intensify the atmosphere of joy during Church gathering in para-cultic occasions. Ensembles of drums with others instruments such as reed pipes, lyres, harps or cymbals indicate first that music was done by skilled musicians in these context too as in the Temple performance. The tom tom falls into the side of folk song tied to African heritage and traditional dances. The music performed by it contains melodic which is the heritage of the past generation, along with the indigenous orchestral instruments such as flute, belles and drums. This folk music would keep the disappearance of African tradition in contemporary society and preserve it over centuries.The tom tom could be considered as a para-cultic artifact that should played only in the setting of gathering of the Church, which is not proper worship; it has to be excluded to proper cultic use, which foster the presence of God and help people to get near to him. Considering the fact that the Temple service, the synagogue or the early Church did not use the drums either for signals only, thus, the tom tom has to serve as a kind of celebratory music. The cymbals were intended to help priests to continue or stop the sacrificial service or for the congregation to indicate that the service was finish. Generally, non-cultic or para-cultic settings call for a blended liturgy and folkloric songs. People can rejoice by stamping their feet or beat the drums in sign of rejoicing.Drums might be used in communal festivities where vernacular songs and popular dances.ConclusionThe tambourine of all kind indeed had become symbols of African traditional religion and thus associated with pagan practice, with a falling from rectitude from the virtues of Judeo an Christian practices representing immorality. In both Synagogue and Early Church worship, instruments were abandoned to the benefit of oral song during worship.

However, African traditions, most part of time, parallel the music of the Bible. Drums and tambourines could be used in Church liturgy amid the betis as elsewhere in para-cultic Church gathering. Traditional approaches to music is rather welcomed as to bring African flavor in worship services, there is nothing like spiritual superiority, but Bible followers. With this peculiar musical instrument, the beti have a way to live their history, traditions and culture. During the years, occasions for ingathering can create opportunities to have folk melodies; singing Gods goodness for them. Christianity should crucify the culture, not to destroy it, because culture remains a part of them. There is thus a valid mandate in doing mission to preserve the African culture and music as widely as possible for future generation, lest there will face a lack of continuity. This state of affairs is detrimental to the general world culture as well for the sake of Africa.The theological model proposed here depends of biblical criteria for the use of musical instruments, with a greatest focus on tambourine. Five criteria can be given to guide the usage of any instrument in modern times: (1) identify the modern or African instrument in its own classification, (2) determine whether is was used in a proper cultic or paracultic context, (3) notice whether the use of this instrument serve to edify the members in the congregation, since no usage or practice must be acceptable if it does not lead to that, (4) what is the inward and outward attitude of worshippers whenever the instrument is used? It is with those principles that the tom tom would serve a significant biblical and communal ritual function. Since the Bible shows fairly well, as shown in this article, that these instruments were more used in secular occasions, most part of time away from the religious sanctuary with what it is never mentioned concomitantly. During the pre-Temple period, the tambourine was confined to the eastern end of the ritual tent, usually in the vineyard or into the auxiliary court of women, for the use of women choir. Although the tom tom has become associated paganisms or with manifestations of immoral acts, this proposed modele might be significant for Church at worship.Ka slu dimesh ndo bai; ka gotso ngece ndo bai, source and translationby Rev. Dr. Moussa Bongoyok

Ellen G. White, Selected Messages (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1958), 1:37.

There are six stages: importation, adaptation, alteration, imitation, indigenization, and internationalization. James R. Krabill, Encounters: What Happens to Music when People Meet? in Music in the Life of the African Church, ed. Roberta King (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 71.

Roberta R. King, A Times to Sing: A Manual for the African Church (Nairobi: Evangel, 1999) 327-28.

Andrew Wilson-Dickson, A Brief History of Christian Music:From Biblical Times to the Present (Oxford: Lion, 1997), 295.

Nadine A. George, Dance and Identity in American Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters, 1900-1935, in Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance, ed. Thomas F. Defrantz (Madison, WS: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 47.

A Possible Notation for African Dance Drumming, African Music 4 (2): 52; Erich M. von Hornbostel (1928) African Negro Music, Africa 1: 3062.

Hornbostel, Erich Moritz von and Curt Sachs (1961) Classication of Musical Instruments, trans. AnthonyBaines and Klaus P. Wachsmann, Galpin Society Journal 14 (March 1961): 329. African people categorize instruments differently from this western orchestral category of strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion, and also it differ from the ethnomusicological classes of aerophone, chordophone, membranophone, and idiophone across the continent. See Ruth M. Stone, Introduction to African Music, in The Garland Handbook of Africa Music, 2e ed. ed. Ruth M. Stone (New York: NY: Routledge, 2000), 17-18.

Ibid.

Daniel Tetteh Osabu-Kle, Bulu, Encyclopedia of African Religion, ed. Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (Los Angeles, LA: Sage, 2009), 142.

Ibid.

The first to make a scientific categorization for the Museum of Brussels Conservatoire was Victor-Charles Mahillon (1841-1924) from 1888 onward. He divided instruments into four classes by their material: (a) self-sounding instruments or autophones, (b) those with membranes, (c) vibratory or stringed, and (d) wind instruments. Erich M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs have sharpened his system in 1914. They have brought up a system that can be sum up as, IMCA (idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, and aerophones). Voir Erich M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, Classification of Musical Instruments, The Galpin Society Journal 14 (Marsh 1961): 3-29; Sachs, History, 455-467.; Victor-Charles Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Muse Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles, 5 vols. 2nd ed. (Brussels: Les Amis de la Musique, 1978), 189; Curt Sachs, Reallexikon der Musikinstrumnente (Berlin, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 1913), I95a; Etoughe Anani Patrick, The Meaning of Macholah/Machol in the OT (PhD Dissertation, Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies, Philippines, 2014).

Curt Sachs, The Wellsprings of Music, ed. Jaap Kunst (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), 1.

Jean-Baptiste (Pere) Labat, Nouvelle relation de lAfrique occidentale contenant une description exacte de Sngal & des Pays situs entre le Cap-Blanc & la Rivire de Serrelionne, 5 vols. (Paris: Cavelier, 1728), 2:245-246.

Ibid. Translation of Simha Arom, African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology, trans from French Martin Thom, Barbara Tuckett and Raymond Boyd (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press,2004), 56.

SylvainMeinard Xavier de Golberry, Fragmens d4un voyage en Afrique fait pendent les annees 1785, 1786 et 1786, dans les contrees occidentales de ce continent, comprises entre le Cap Blanc de Barbarie . . . et le Cap de Palmes . . .(Paris, 1802).2, 417-18. Translation from Arom, African Polyphony and Polyrhythm, 51.

Curt Sachs, The Wellsprings, 1.

Christoph von Fuerer-Haimendorf, The naked (London, 1939), 208.

Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropology structural, 120.

Sachs, The Wellsprings, 3.

Verrier Elvin and Shamrao Hivale, Folk-Songs of the Maikal Hills (London, 1944), xv.

Pierre Billard, Encyclopdia Universalis, s. v. Musicales (traditions).

See Francis W. Galpin,The Music of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 2-5

Sachs, TheWelspring, 97.

Ibid., 96.

Richard J. Dumbrill, The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East (Canada: Trafford, 2005), 335; Francis Galpin, The Music of the Sumerians, 2-5; E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (New York, NY: Dover, 1978), s.v. axtit, mait.

Dumbrill, The Archaeomusicology, 334-58.

Engelbert Fouda Etoundi, La tradition et la pratique de ses rites (Cameroun, Sopecam, 2012), 102.

Carrington 1949, 1956, 1975.

Gerhard Kubik, Questions for Critical Thinking East Africa, in The Garland Handbook of Africa Music, 2e ed. ed. Ruth M. Stone (New York: NY: Routledge, 2000), 339.

Etooundi, La tradition, 102.

Kefentse K. Chike, The Drum, EAR, 221-223; E. A. Dagan, ed., Drums: The Heartbeat of Africa (Montreal: Galerie Amrad Art,1993); B. Martin, The Message of Africa Drumming (Brazaville: Bantoues, 1983).

Christian Seignobos et Henry Tourneux, Le Nord-Cameroun travers ses mots: dictionnaire de termes anciens etmodernes (Paris: IRD, 2002 ), 263.

Etoundi, La tradition, 104.

John Stainer, The Music of the Bible: with an Account of the Development of Modern Musical Instruments from Ancient Types (London: Novello, Ewer, n.d.), 3.

Emmanuel Komben Ngwainmbi, Bamileke, Encyclopedia of African Religion, ed. Moledi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (London, UK: Sage, 2009), 102,

From 1-2 Sam and 1-2 Chr and the books of Psalms are the main sources of references to musical instruments in the Bible or terminology.

Yelena Kolyada, A Compendium of Musical Instrumental Terminology in the Bible (London. Routlege, 2014), 4-6.

Those instruments are always used in nominal pairs in the Old Testament with another musical instrument: bmahol btop with hand drum and (single) flute (Pss 149:3 and 150:4; btop wkinnor with hand drum and lyre in Gen 31:27), btuppm ubimholot with hand drums and double reed flutes (Exod 15:20; Judg 11:34; 1 Sam 18:6; cf. btuppm ubkinnorot with hand drum and harps in Isa 30:32). And hannhlot is a term of unknown origin, but most probably of musical import. The root of it might be of hll, which is also from the same hall flute. However, considering the LXX hyper tes kleronomouses = }el-hannohelet reading shared by Jerome, Aquila and Symmaque, that is possibly a designation of a melody is unlikely because most of the times the lamnasseah the choirmaster introduce a psalm with a bet essentia, the connection are musical instruments (Pss 4; 6; 8; 54:1; 56 etc.).

Kolyada, A Compendium, 4-6.

E. Werner, From generation to generation: studies on Jewish musical tradition (New York: American Conference of Cantors, 1967), 6.

For the plans of some of those pagans temples, see Aharon Kempinski, Ronny Reich et al. ed., The Architecture of Ancient Israel: From the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods (Jerusalem, 1992), 163; Soggin, An Introduction, 364.

See for eg., John Arthur Smith, Music in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (England: Ashgate, 2011), 39.

John W. Kleinig, The Lords Song: The Basis, Function and Significance of Choral Music in Chronicles (Sheffield: xx, 1993), 16; Smith, Music, 40.

See Joachim Braun, Biblical Instruments, New Grove 2/3 (2002), 3:525-26; Joachim Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written, and Comparative Sources, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids MI, 2002).

See Elwyn A. Wienandt, Opinions on Church Music: Comments and Reports from Four-and-a-half Centuries (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 1974), 294. Also by the time where music of the church was purely vocal and that only the organ was permitted, the others instruments were not used, The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells and the like (p. 340).

Listed in Table 5 in S. E. Gillingham, The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2534, and Ps 95 is borderline between the two periods.

Smith, Music in Ancient Judaism, 49.

Ibid., 161.

Voir Eric Werner, ed., Contribution to a Historical Study of Jewish Music (Jerusalem: Ktav, ), 6-7.

Irene Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Cultus (London: Greenwood, 1994), 42.

Contre Ibid., 43.