When the Drums Speak, the Ancestors Answer!

Tam
Dec 28, 2025
3 min read

Hey Juju Mama, let’s talk about the drum.

Not just the drum as an instrument, but the drum as a force. As a portal. As a living, breathing voice that carries the power of our ancestors, the rhythm of the earth, and the vibration of the unseen.

As a Sangoma of the Nguni tribe of South Africa, I don’t just hear the drum...I feel it.

I know what happens when it starts to speak.

I’ve seen spirits move through bodies like waves.

I’ve seen people weep, shout, dance, and drop to their knees in surrender.

I’ve seen healing pour out through hands, through feet, through hips that roll and shoulders that shake because the spirit won’t let them sit still.

The Drum Ain’t Just Noise. It’s a Call

In African and Indigenous spirituality, the drum is more than a beat, it’s a call.

A call to spirit. A call to memory. A call to movement.

When that drum starts talking, the body starts responding. For some, it’s a slow sway, a deep inhale, a trance-like meditation. But for many of us...especially those of us with melanin in our skin and ancestors who spoke in rhythm....we don’t go in.

We go out!

Our meditation is movement.

Our prayer is the stomp of our feet, the roll of our hips, the shaking of our hands as we let the spirit move us.

Think About the Black Church…

You ever been in a Black church when the music starts?

When that drum kicks in and the choir lifts their voices? People don’t sit still.

The spirit takes over.

Feet start tapping, hands go up, bodies start rocking. Some run. Some cry. Some fall out under the power of something ancient, something divine.

That’s not just emotion. That’s not just a “moment.” That’s ancestral. That’s Indigenous. That’s us.

We’ve always danced our prayers. We’ve always let spirit move through us, shake us loose, set us free. Even David in the Bible danced before the Most High. And you know there had to be a drum, a tambourine, a rhythm that pulled him into that praise. Because that’s how we move when we’re tapped in.

Meditation Ain’t Always Quiet

I was talking to a sister the other day, and she was saying how she leads drum circles to connect with spirit in a somewhat silent way, no talking and how people should go within, be still, be introspective.

And I’m not challenging that because some spirits do connect that way.

But for some of us, stillness ain’t it.

Some of us hear the drum and feel our entire being crack open. We feel the weight of generations lift.

We feel joy.

We feel sorrow.

We feel release.

And our bodies respond...because spirit ain’t just in the mind, it’s in the bones, in the blood, in the muscle memory of our ancestors who danced before us.

Some meditate with the drum by breathing deep and listening. Others meditate by becoming the rhythm.

Both are sacred.

Both are valid.

And we need to hold space for both.