Strange artifacts known as slot drums help the villagers to communicate. They are truly extraordinary. They can be seen in the Vanuatu archipelago in the South Pacific.
Ambrim Island.
To communicate between villages, people created slot gongs (drums). Beats of different duration and sound were used to send important encrypted messages. In Russia, bells existed for these purposes. Under suitable atmospheric conditions, their sound can be carried over kilometers through forests to neighboring islands.
Slot drums are figures with large heads. They were cut from the trunks of breadfruit trees, and then a resonating chamber with a narrow slit-like opening was cut out. The tall signal statues of northern Vanuatu are considered the largest stand-alone musical instruments on earth.
The long vertical slit represents the mouth through which the voice of the "ancestor" appears when the gong sounds.
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Slot drums are used not only as a communication device, but also as an important instrument at festivals and other gatherings of villagers, where a series of gongs form a unique musical orchestra, which together with drummers produces unusual and very complex rhythms.