When the Drummers Were Women:
 A Spiritual History of Rhythm
 Layne Redmond
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 Crown Pub; 260 images edition (June 1997)
  ISBN: 0609801287


Drumming, in the powerful feminine/goddess traditions of Mediterranean & Middle Eastern cultures, was a medium of communication & spirituality; a way of exploring consciousness & the surrounding world. In all ancient friezes, bas reliefs & hieroglyphs the drummers were women.

This was a gift from a son to his mother & I have drunk from this spiritual history of rhythm as a thirsting nomad coming out of a desert - carefully, knowingly & with intense affection.

The images of women from ancient times, little statues, fragments of funeria, swatches of hieroglyphics from Egyptian graffiti are bone-deeply evocative.

As a midwife of frame drums for a decade I know the awe-inspiring effect shamanic drumming has on health, happiness & that elusive sense of belonging.

As Gabrielle Roth writes on the back cover..."I devoured this book with a spiritual hunger that astonished me, hunger for roots that go all the way back to zero. Hunger for information to back up my instincts, my intuitive responses to world that has forgotten that god is the dance..." so did I respond to Layne Redmond's When the Drummers Were Women.

This is the story of one successful woman's search for identity, spiritual connection & history of her gender. It is a search for every woman among shards that have been overlooked by the erstwhile all-male fields of anthropology & archaeology.

I've heard men scoff at the lack of empirical scientific evidence Layne Redmond extrapolates from her findings. Only a woman who has been a drummer in today's all-male world of percussion can at last see the myriad clues left in clay by our ancestresses & make that leap of recognition.

Women's great yearning for connectedness have not fabricated the multitude of carvings depicting dancing women holding frame drums; they are there for all to see, representing real rituals, real happenings & not simply the romantic dreaming of artists.

Women really did perform oracular, healing rituals & were revered for their contributions to the community so much so that when male-dominated cultures overtook them, the invaders, like the Christians who came later, both suppressed & stole prevailing rituals.

As Layne Redmond states:.."Although I've enjoyed professional recognition and success since striking out on my own, there's always the underlying impression that what I'm doing is weird. Marketable, but weird. Relating my music to goddesses and spirituality makes me suspect as a musician and as a person..."

I know that suspicion well, with my drums hanging from the rafters of our cabin yet when I congregate with other drummers & singers, all weirdness dissolves & all that exists is spirit.

I recommend Layne Redmond's When the Drummers Were Women because this is a well researched volume & is for every women to reconnect with her ancient story & how spiritual has been our lineage.

Wonderful, ecstatic stuff!

Do check out my Interview with Layne Redmond!
05/07/00

Rebecca