N E W S a- 



CHICAGO NATURAL M|| __ ||M 

 HISTORY MUSEUM 



Cover: "Sun Drum" from Laos — Featured Exhibit for March 



A Laotian bronze drum, presented 

 by the people of Laos to the people 

 of Chicago through the CARE organ- 

 ization is the Museum's featured exhibit 

 for March. 



The gift marked the observance in 

 March, 1956, of the tenth anniversary of 

 CARE. Presentation was made to the 

 Museum by Mr. Oden Meeker, Mission 

 Chief for CARE in northern Laos and 

 Indochina. 



The bronze drum is an excellent ex- 

 ample of a type known in many parts of 

 eastern and southeastern Asia during the 

 past 2,000 years. The Museum's speci- 

 men comes from Namtha, capital of an 

 isolated province in mountainous north- 

 west Laos. Lying at the uppermost 

 reaches of the Mekong River, Namtha 

 is in the heart of the anthropologically 

 complex region where China, Indochina, 

 Thailand, and Burma meet. 



The drum is notable for its decorative 

 and symbolic designs, skillfully executed 

 in high and low relief. The center of the 

 drumhead is marked by a circle, within 

 which is a stylized twelve-rayed sun fig- 



ure — a design that has given drums of 

 this type the name, "sun drums." Be- 

 yond this figure are twenty-one concen- 

 tric zones bearing geometric and bird 

 designs. Four stylized frog figures are 

 evenly spaced astride the periphery. 



Page 2 



The drum bears a striking resemblance 

 to a Thai bronze drum that was pre- 

 sented to Queen Victoria and is known, 

 from its placement in Windsor Castle, 

 as the Windsor Drum. 



The earliest known examples of this 

 type of drum have been uncovered in 

 burials in Tonkin, the portion of north- 

 eastern Indochina contiguous to China. 

 These appear to date from about the 

 beginning of the Christian era, or per- 

 haps slightly earlier. Since then, the 

 drums in variant forms have been manu- 

 factured and used continuously to the 

 present day, being particularly well rep- 

 resented in the large region comprised of 

 south and southwest China, northern 

 Indochina, northern Thailand, and west- 

 central Burma. 



The meaning of the symbolism of the 

 designs on the drums is difficult to ascer- 

 tain. One group of Chinese legends as- 

 sociates the drums with Ma Yuan, a 

 Chinese general of the Latter Han period 

 (a.d. 25-220), who carried out military 

 expeditions against the non-Chinese 

 peoples of the south. A fanciful tale re- 

 lates that the drums were placed under 

 mountain waterfalls so that the thunder 

 of the water falling on them would de- 

 ceive the rebellious natives into believing 

 that the Chinese armies were near. 



One of the most plausible explanations 

 of the drums' function is that they were 

 used in rain-making ceremonies. With 

 their thunder-like sound and frog sym- 

 bolism, such drums were thought to be 

 effective in causing rain through the 

 mechanism of sympathetic magic. De- 

 scriptions of rain ceremonies from the 

 Latter Han period refer specifically to 

 the beating of drums and the placing of 

 five frogs in a carefully prescribed arti- 

 ficial pond. Bronze drums also have 

 been used in Chinese rain ceremonials 

 during more recent centuries, and it is 

 known that the Karen people of east- 

 central Burma still carry out annual rain 

 ceremonies with "frog drums" that have 

 been in the possession of some tribes 

 since the twelfth century. 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 



Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5 



Telephone: WAbash 2-9410 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Lester Armour 

 Wm. McCormick Blair 

 Walther Buchen 

 Walter J. Cummings 

 Joseph N. Field 

 Marshall Field, Jr. 

 Stanley Field 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Henry P. Isham 



William V. Kahler 

 Hughston M. McBain 

 J. Roscoe Miller 

 William H. Mitchell 

 John T. Pirie, Jr. 

 Clarence B. Randall 

 John G. Searle 

 Solomon A. Smith 

 Louis Ware 



J. Howard Wood 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Field, President 



Hughston M. McBain, First Vice-President 



Walther Buchen, Second Vice-President 



Joseph N. Field, Third Vice-President 



Solomon A. Smith, Treasurer 



Clifford C. Gregg, Director and Secretary 



E. Leland Webber, Assistant Secretary 



THE BULLETIN 



EDITOR 



Clifford C. Gregg, Director of the Museum 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology 



John R. Millar, Chief Curator of Botany 



Sharat K. Roy, Chief Curator of Geology 



Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator of Zoology 



MANAGING EDITOR 



Paula R. Nelson, Public Relations Counsel 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR 



Marilyn Jindrich, Associate in Public Relations 



Members are requested to inform the Museum 

 promptly of changes of address. 



A fuller account of this drum and its 

 history is given in the July 1956 issue of 

 the Bulletin by Dr. Kenneth Starr, 

 Curator of Asiatic Archaeology and Eth- 

 nology. 



The Laotian drum will be displayed 

 in Stanley Field hall, suspended from a 

 frame. A soft-headed mallet will be pro- 

 vided so that visitors may test the drum's 

 tone. 



Spring Children's Programs 



Spring 1961 heralds another series of 

 free Saturday motion picture programs 

 for children in the Museum's James Simp- 

 son Theatre. Beginning on March 4 

 and continuing through April, the new 

 series offers a variety of film subj'ects, in- 

 cluding a study of life under the ocean; 

 an old Crow Indian legend about a lost 

 {Museum News continued on page 8) 



