Palenque de San Basilio is a village not far from Cartagena in Colombia (here), which represents a really unique cultural space. At the dawn of the17th century, several groups of african slaves escaped from spanish settlers, building fortified villages called "palenques". San Basilio village, led originally by african king Benkos Bohio, is the only one who survived up to nowadays.
Living during centuries away from occidental and spaniard influences allowed to maintain alive in the community many aspects of the original african culture: social organization (for example age group structures called "kuadro"), rites and believes (based on 3 different worlds) , creole language (taking his roots in bantu language), hairstyles (plaits, supposed to be originally designed in order to reproduce a map of the trails around the village), traditional medicines...
For sure, the drum tradition in the village is fully representative of these african roots, and is articulated around the three main drums as follows:
- llamador (small drum, for the tempo)
- alegre (bigger drum, for the solos)
- tamborera (bass drum with sticks)
(additionally, funerals can include a huge drum called pechiche)
