you can only knock when you are in a group activity.

The wooden drum is a percussion instrument of the Wa nationality. It has a long history, simple shape, low pronunciation and wide application, and has been popular in Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the head of the Wa wooden drum was made of cowhide, and there were 2 wooden handles around the drum body under the head. There are flat long sound holes in the drum body, and there are drum tongues and teeth inside, which can create echo effect. On the left and right sides of the drum body, there is a sound groove and a square sound window with a narrow middle and wide ends.

Generally, Wa wooden drums are about 2m long and .5m to 1m in diameter. There are two kinds of drums: male drum and female drum. Its material, size and timbre are very different.

Compared with the female drum, the male drum has a lower syllable and a heavy timbre. It is made of Ma Yingying tree, with a length of 1.8m and a diameter of 66cm. The mother drum has a high syllable and crisp timbre. It is made of mangrove, 1.5 meters long and 62 centimeters in diameter, which is a little smaller than the male drum.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Wa people used two drumsticks, about 4 cm long, with thick ends and thin middle. When the Wa people are playing drums, they hold the middle of a mallet in their hands, and while dancing, they knock on both sides of the wooden drum, which will make a "drumming" sound, which can spread for miles.

sometimes the Wa people can hold a drumstick in their right hand, a bamboo piece in their left hand, and beat the middle of the drum with both hands, making a sound of "thumping" and "thumping", which is sometimes uniform and sometimes staggered, and the rhythm is rich and colorful.

According to the book "Taiping Yu Lan" edited by Li Mu, a scholar in the Song Dynasty,

Call the people to be my friends. If you need anything, take more than ten feet of empty material, and stand beside the atrium and pestle, and it will be like a drum. When the people heard about it, they all went to the meeting.

It can be seen that the wooden drum was popular in Yunnan as early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, and was used by the ancient Wa people as a rallying call. Later, Li Zongyun, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, also wrote about this kind of wooden drum in his book Qian Ji:

adjacent to the villages, * * * built the first floor at Gaotan, which is called Jutang. Use a wooden pole, which is several feet long and empty, hanging from the top, and it is called a long drum. If there is any injustice, go upstairs and attack it, and the villages will hear about it.

In addition, the Wa People's Custom Map in the Qing Dynasty also shows images of Wa men and women standing on both sides of wooden drums, beating with bamboo pieces in their hands. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the hardworking and intelligent Wa people were good at singing and dancing, and they lived in the densely forested Wa mountain area in the southwest of China. In every Wa village, there are at least one pair of wooden drums for putting in the village.

Also, in the eyes of the ancient Wa people, they thought that the wooden drum was a heavenly artifact, the most noble and sacred musical instrument, and they also regarded the day of making wooden drums as a grand religious activity of the Wa people and a grand festival, which was called "Lamu Drum".

On this day, the Wa people in ancient times sang and danced. This cheerful and warm scene later developed into a unique Wa Lamu drum dance. On the way to pulling wooden drums, even on the smooth road, people deliberately slow down so that everyone can enjoy drinking and singing and dancing.

On this day, guns will be fired and cows will be slaughtered in the stockade, so that people can enjoy the joy of the festival. Sacrificial ceremonies will be held at the entrance of the village, and then wooden drums will be made as a signal to call and a percussion instrument for large-scale song and dance activities.

The wooden drum tree is the raw material for the ancient Wa people to make wooden drums. It is called "Kuluo" and "Kela" in Wa language. It is made of a whole thick log, and the lower part of hard trunk such as red hair tree, Toona sinensis tree or cherry tree is mostly used as the material.

In ancient Wa wooden drum trees, some were stripped of bark, generally smooth and unadorned, some were carved with cow heads or heads at one end, and some were carved with triangular patterns or twill patterns. Later, an ancient Wa wooden drum was unearthed in Yunnan. The drum was 155 cm long, 5 cm in diameter at the thick end, 11 cm in length and 1 cm in width.

The wooden drum is originated from the primitive religion that the Wa people believed in animism from generation to generation in ancient times. Among the Wa people, there are many folk myths and legends about the wooden drum, which are closely related to the worship of gods and ancestors of our ancestors. A series of activities around the wooden drum, such as pulling wooden drums and offering wooden drums, constitute a solemn and warm grand festival of the ancient Wa people, which is a concentrated expression of the traditional music of the Wa people.