Chepang Shaman Drum / Schamanentrommel Nepal

Introduction
The shaman drum of the Chepang, an Indigenous community of the middle hills of central and southern Nepal, is among the most important ritual instruments of Himalayan shamanism. Known as the pande's drum, it is regarded not simply as a musical instrument but as a sacred ritual object through which communication with ancestral spirits, protective deities, and other supernatural beings becomes possible. Its sound establishes the ritual framework for healing ceremonies, divination, spirit negotiations, and rites intended to restore harmony between the human and spiritual worlds.

Construction
The Chepang shaman drum is a circular frame drum with a single goatskin membrane stretched over a wooden frame. Inside the frame, a cross-shaped handle provides stability while allowing the drum to be held comfortably during prolonged ritual performances. Many examples are fitted with iron chains, rings, bells, or symbolic metal pendants attached to the interior rim. These elements produce additional metallic sounds during performance and are widely understood to possess protective and apotropaic qualities, reinforcing the ritual power of the instrument.

Ritual Function
For the Chepang shaman, the drum serves as the principal ritual medium throughout a séance. Its changing rhythms accompany invocations, mythical recitations, healing practices, and trance states. Rather than functioning solely as musical accompaniment, the instrument guides ritual action and facilitates communication with invisible forces. Within Chepang cosmology, the drum is often perceived as an extension of the shaman's own spiritual authority and an indispensable companion during encounters with benevolent and malevolent beings alike.

Ethnological Significance
The Chepang drum belongs to a broader tradition of Himalayan and Inner Asian shamanic frame drums, many of which are understood as symbolic representations of the universe. Ethnographic research has shown that these instruments embody far more than their acoustic function: they operate simultaneously as ritual tools, sacred objects, visual symbols, and cosmological models. Their construction, materials, and attached ritual ornaments express complex religious concepts linking mythology, healing practices, and the shaman's journey through the spiritual realm.

The drums are the medium through which the shaman (pande) makes communication with the supernatural forces. Therefore they are considered as sacred. Various iron hangings around the drum hold great power as they are supposed to protect from some possible attacks form spirits and malefic beings.


The chepang drum "(...)generally varies in diameter which can be anything from forty to fifty centimeters, and the frame, which is about twenty centimeters wide, is made of wood from a tree called sandan in Nepali and bunsi in Chepang. The membrane is made of goat’s hide.(...)The ring grip is fixed, internal and cross shaped. It is usually made of the same wood as the frame and then covered with a strip of the same goat’s hide as that used for the membrane, though one can occasionally find iron grips in the shape of a cross. There are a varying number of iron chains with different symbolic hangings fixed to the upper part of the frame by means of iron rings. These are located on the inside of the drum opposite the membrane and usually face the pande during seances. Chepang drum skins are never painted by the pande(...)" excerpt from: Riboli, Diana (2000) TUNSURIBAN - Shamanism in the Chepang of Southern and Central Nepal.


"The shaman’s drum is not just a rhythm instrument with which faith healers add an acoustic component to their rituals. It is a self-contained embodiment of the cosmos in which their owners travel in the course of their séances. (...) The drum’s numerous functions—as a musical instrument accompanying the recitation of mythical songs, as a pacemaker of ritual dances, as a vehicle on which the shaman travels through space, as a defensive and assault weapon against negative powers, as a diagnostic and prognostic instrument - make it a kind of all- purpose companion to its owner." excerpt from: MICHAEL OPPITZ : Forschungen an den Rändern der Schrift 26 January – 14 April 2018 exhibition at Galerie Buchholz - Edit Daniel Buchholz


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