The gumbe drum is thought to have been invented by Maroons in the Americas and brought to Africa by Maroons who were resettled in Sierra Leone during the 1800s.

Man playing the gumbe drum at an annual celebration honoring Leeward Maroon hero Kojo (Cudjoe), Accompong, Jamaica, 1992.9999
Photograph by Vivien Chen



 

 




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Members of the Aluku and Ndjuka communities of French Guiana and Suriname dance awasa at the 1992 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

 

 

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"I will not abandon the old dances of my people. I was born with those traditions. I will dance your dances. But when I perform my own — that is my tradition. Never will I abandon it."

— Gaanman Joachim-Joseph Adochini, paramount leader of the Aluku Maroons, French Guiana, 1992

 


 

Above and right: Ndjuka Maroons dancing, Diitabiki, Suriname, 1995.
Photographs by Bart Kamphuis


" . . . the ancestors came from Africa bringing knowledge with them. Even though they didn’t escape with the drum, the knowledge still existed with them and when they got into the interior they started making drums on their own terms."

— Anikéi Awagie, Saramaka drummer, Suriname, 1992

 

 

 

 

In addition to making music, Guianese Maroons use drums, rattles, and other instruments to communicate between the invisible world of spirits and the visible world of human beings. Drums are also used to announce events to the community and to induce spiritual trances during sacred rituals.

Saramaka Maroon ritual instruments, Asindóópo, Suriname, 1991.
Photograph by Diana Baird N’Diaye