A Rain Drum

Bronze curved shape rain drum with two double handles surmounted by a circular top. The circular top is decorated with a stylized star surrounded by geometric linear decoration and frog figures.
Burma.
19th century.

Rich families prestige object, it was played either by the hands either with lethear or fabric tips mallets to obtain sounds more or less loud or attenuated. The rain drums were played by men and women, always separately, to regulate the monsoon, to make the rain fall or stop it, in the interest of rice harvests. These drums were symbolically related to the elephant. The emitted sound could carry up to several kilometers away. The rain drums were played suspended with the help of ropes attached either to the roof of the house either to a tree branch.