Why leopard skins for drummers?

[dutchy kilted]

I was going through some YouTube videos of various pipe bands with my son and he asked me why the drummers wear leopard (I'm guessing) skins. I honestly had no idea but I promised him I would try to find an answer for him. Anyone have an answer on how or why this tradition started? Thanks in advance!

[macwilkin]

See:

http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/tr...ress/skins.htm

Regards,

T.

[BobsYourUncle]

See:

http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/tr...ress/skins.htm

Regards,

T.

Actually, the use of leopard skins by Highland drummers is NOT thought to come from the 18th Century practice of employing "blackamoor" drummers. I am afraid the account on the Calgary Highlanders website is not born out by historical fact or analysis. The account on the website does not cite any sources, and the theory advanced does not represent the prevailing view of historians.

Neither is the use of such skins by drummers in the Highland regiments attributable to the influence of Roman Legions--that is just fanciful nonsense. The development of military drumming in England and Scotland in the 18th Century had much more to do with the introduction of Turkish military bands, and the Janissaries, to German [Prussian] armies, with outlandish costumes, cymbals, triangles, and drums used in a style of percussion new to the potentates of Europe, who raced to employ their colleagues and to copy them.

The leopard skins were a distinct and different development, and here Pleater gets much nearer to the position advanced by historians, especially Hugh Barty-King:

"The wearing of leopard skin aprons by bass and tenor drummers is often thought to have been introduced by the negro percussionists who first performed the new Janissary Music. But William Boag, Assistant to the Keeper of the Scottish United Services Museum in Edinburgh, and leading authority on The Drum, believes it started by being a way of using the skins of animals shot by British army officers serving in Africa and India, to which there was frequently fixed an inscribed silver plate giving the date and place of the killing and the name and regiment of the killer."

The Drum, A Royal Tournament Tribute to the Military Drum, by Hugh Barty-King, London, The Royal Tournament, Horse Guards, Whitehall, 1988, p. 89.

The pictorial record would seem to bear this out, images of the leopard skin do not appear until after the Highland regiments served in India and Africa, whereas the popularity of the use of black drummers in British Army units predates that by at least a century, and apparently ended well before the service of the Highland regiments in India and Africa.

Cheers!

[macwilkin]

Actually, the use of leopard skins by Highland drummers is NOT thought to come from the 18th Century practice of employing "blackamoor" drummers. I am afraid the account on the Calgary Highlanders website is not born out by historical fact or analysis. The account on the website does not cite any sources, and the theory advanced does not represent the prevailing view of historians.

Neither is the use of such skins by drummers in the Highland regiments attributable to the influence of Roman Legions--that is just fanciful nonsense. The development of military drumming in England and Scotland in the 18th Century had much more to do with the introduction of Turkish military bands, and the Janissaries, to German [Prussian] armies, with outlandish costumes, cymbals, triangles, and drums used in a style of percussion new to the potentates of Europe, who raced to employ their colleagues and to copy them.

The leopard skins were a distinct and different development, and here Pleater gets much nearer to the position advanced by historians, especially Hugh Barty-King:

"The wearing of leopard skin aprons by bass and tenor drummers is often thought to have been introduced by the negro percussionists who first performed the new Janissary Music. But William Boag, Assistant to the Keeper of the Scottish United Services Museum in Edinburgh, and leading authority on The Drum, believes it started by being a way of using the skins of animals shot by British army officers serving in Africa and India, to which there was frequently fixed an inscribed silver plate giving the date and place of the killing and the name and regiment of the killer."

The Drum, A Royal Tournament Tribute to the Military Drum, by Hugh Barty-King, London, The Royal Tournament, Horse Guards, Whitehall, 1988, p. 89.

The pictorial record would seem to bear this out, images of the leopard skin do not appear until after the Highland regiments served in India and Africa, whereas the popularity of the use of black drummers in British Army units predates that by at least a century, and apparently ended well before the service of the Highland regiments in India and Africa.

Cheers!

Did you write the Calgary Highlanders and ask them for their works cited list? Before declaring them summarily incorrect, perhaps we should at least give them a chance to defend themselves. I would certainly like to see Boag's sources, as the mention of his theory in Barty-King's book seems to be just that -- I'm not implying he is incorrect, but I'd like to see the footnotes for that particular reference.

I'll take a look at Hinterland warriors and military dress : European empires and exotic uniforms by Abler and see if he has anything to add to the discussion.

T.

[BobsYourUncle]

Did you write the Calgary Highlanders and ask them for their works cited list? Before declaring them summarily incorrect, perhaps we should at least give them a chance to defend themselves. I would certainly like to see Boag's sources, as the mention of his theory in Barty-King's book seems to be just that -- I'm not implying he is incorrect, but I'd like to see the footnotes for that particular reference.

I'll take a look at Hinterland warriors and military dress : European empires and exotic uniforms by Abler and see if he has anything to add to the discussion.

T.

That would be most useful. I was disappointed in both David Murray'sThe Music of the Scottish Regiments and in Highland Soldier--neither of which discussed the leopard skins, despite the fact that Murray has an entire chapter on drummer's dress in the Highland Regiments.

To be honest, it was the lack of citation to anything but Boag's belief that caused me to quote at length--I wanted the character of the source to be clear. However, the overall discussion by Barty-King, and my inability to find any image in any of these works of black drummers wearing leopard skins contributed to my willingness to accept Boag's view.

The paragraph I quote is pretty nearly the entire discussion of the matter of leopard skins by Barty-King, but his discussion of black drummers extends over parts of two chapters, discusses their exotic costume and role as drummers, and cites to several contemporaneous sources for description of their garb, none of which includes leopard skins. It doesn't mean that evidence from other sources does not exist, but it also does not provide any evidence in support of the proposition that black drummers were the source of the tradition of wearing leopard skins. That and the fact that leopard skins do not appear in any of the images of dummers in these sources until a much later period, after the black drummers were no longer employed.

Perhaps on further consideration, I would like to see more evidence than just Boag's belief, and the absence of images in the sources available to me. What is the saying--"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Even though both logic and the timeline seem to support Boag's belief, an actual source would be of no small comfort...

[OC Richard]

By the way, it's not just leopard skins but tiger skins as well. And regiments besides Highland regiments wear them.

It varies from regiment to regiment.

So during their 1976 USA tour the Royal Marines' tenor drummers wore leopard skins, their bass drummer a tiger skin.

Or the bass drummer can wear a plain cloth covering, as in the Scots Guards.

I had understood that the skins were worn to protect the bass drummers' uniforms from damage, the skins being more plentiful than uniform tunics during service in India.

Whether plain cloth or an animal skin, it's usual for the bass drummer to wear a protective covering.

[Pleater]

The romantic reason is that it goes back to Roman times when their signallers - they had various horns to try to transmit orders over the noise of battle - used to wear exotic animal hides. I think that they wore them as a helmet cover and cape rather than as an apron.

Some British military drummers also had horns or trumpets as part of their duties as signallers - there are different sorts of drummers, some musicians, some messengers, some are trained as medical orderlies others are purely infantrymen.

A bandsman marching around with a drum or cymbals would, I am sure, wish to use a pelt, or any leather or padding to keep the knobbly bits of the drum off his uniform, and the metal parts of his uniform from scratching the drum, which might be highly decorated with regimental honours and damage to it might be frowned upon from a great height. Cymbals are silenced by being clasped against the chest, which must also have caused damage and discomfort.

I've marched with a side drum and soon learned that it can be a bruising experience.

Having officers going off killing animals in their spare time must have brought in a steady stream of pelts back in the days of the Raj. The Queen's uncle, Mountbatten of Burma, shot tigers which ended up as drummer's aprons - or so I am told. They have a little brass plate riveted to them to record the deed.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[macwilkin]

The romantic reason is that it goes back to Roman times when their signallers - they had various horns to try to transmit orders over the noise of battle - used to wear exotic animal hides. I think that they wore them as a helmet cover and cape rather than as an apron.

Some British military drummers also had horns or trumpets as part of their duties as signallers - there are different sorts of drummers, some musicians, some messengers, some are trained as medical orderlies others are purely infantrymen.

A bandsman marching around with a drum or cymbals would, I am sure, wish to use a pelt, or any leather or padding to keep the knobbly bits of the drum off his uniform, and the metal parts of his uniform from scratching the drum, which might be highly decorated with regimental honours and damage to it might be frowned upon from a great height. Cymbals are silenced by being clasped against the chest, which must also have caused damage and discomfort.

I've marched with a side drum and soon learned that it can be a bruising experience.

Having officers going off killing animals in their spare time must have brought in a steady stream of pelts back in the days of the Raj. The Queen's uncle, Mountbatten of Burma, shot tigers which ended up as drummer's aprons - or so I am told. They have a little brass plate riveted to them to record the deed.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

See the article from the Calgary Highlander's site, Anne.

T.

[TheNaughtyScot]

The romantic reason is that it goes back to Roman times when their signallers - they had various horns to try to transmit orders over the noise of battle - used to wear exotic animal hides. I think that they wore them as a helmet cover and cape rather than as an apron.

Some British military drummers also had horns or trumpets as part of their duties as signallers - there are different sorts of drummers, some musicians, some messengers, some are trained as medical orderlies others are purely infantrymen.

A bandsman marching around with a drum or cymbals would, I am sure, wish to use a pelt, or any leather or padding to keep the knobbly bits of the drum off his uniform, and the metal parts of his uniform from scratching the drum, which might be highly decorated with regimental honours and damage to it might be frowned upon from a great height. Cymbals are silenced by being clasped against the chest, which must also have caused damage and discomfort.

I've marched with a side drum and soon learned that it can be a bruising experience.

Having officers going off killing animals in their spare time must have brought in a steady stream of pelts back in the days of the Raj. The Queen's uncle, Mountbatten of Burma, shot tigers which ended up as drummer's aprons - or so I am told. They have a little brass plate riveted to them to record the deed.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Indeed, the most exotic skins went to the Aquilifer, who carried the eagle standard for the legion. The skins of exotic animals, particularly lions from Africa, demonstrated the awesome power and extent of the Roman Empire.

[Spc. Scott]

Very interesting article Todd.