Vietnam’s highland drums reveal ancient beliefs
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Dang Minh Tam, a resident of Da Lat in Vietnam, is displaying a collection of drums from ethnic communities of the Central Highlands at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.
The drums are part of the ‘Nhat Trong: One Drumbeat - A Thousand Years of Civilization’ exhibition, coinciding with the 2026 Thang Long - Hanoi Festival. These drums historically belonged to wealthy families, who followed a complex ritual to obtain the wood and materials needed for their construction.
Families seeking to create a drum first made offerings to forest and tree spirits, asking permission to fell a large, flawless tree, typically a single trunk measuring around one meter in diameter. A group of men then ventured into the forest, carrying offerings and observing taboos such as avoiding the sound of a cuckoo or the sight of a black snake.
They tested the tree spirit’s willingness by throwing an axe into the trunk and returning the next day to check if it remained embedded. Central Highlands drums differ from others in Vietnam because they are carved from single tree trunks and covered with thick buffalo hide, sometimes retaining the animal’s hair. The drums also feature “ears” pierced in the hide of the main drumhead, believed to allow the instrument to hear the voices of spirits.
People treat the drums as sacred objects, placing them in positions of honor and restricting who can play them, and only the owner or village elder can sound the drum after making offerings to the spirits. Tam notes that creating drums in this traditional way is now nearly impossible, making these instruments increasingly rare.
