Horizontal Drum from Papua New Guinea

These horizontal split drums are called Garamuts and orignate from the Sepik River region in Papua New Guinea. The indigenous people in this part of the world believed that spirits trapped within the drum gave it its distinct musical voice. They treated the drums as beings in and of themselves, naming them and believing they moved by themselves at night. No one made a garamut for themselves, it was presented as a gift during important times in a man's life.