Cham musicians struggle to save souls

      "We have to keep Cham music resounding in our temples forever, otherwise our souls will be lost," 62-year-old drum maker Thien Sanh Thiem's father told him as he lay on his deathbed.
But with the encroachment of modern life eroding traditional ways, elders of the Cham ethnic group, who populate the lower central part of the country and practise Brahmanism, are worried that their spiritually significant traditional musical instruments could be lost forever.
An essential set of Cham instruments is composed of a saranai cornet, a pair of ginang drums and a baranung drum, which takes more than a month of pains-taking, delicate effort to make.
The percussion instruments frames are made of hollow round trunks of sturdy wood like ironwood covered by 3-5cm thick skins taken from horned male goats or females that have given birth seven times.
The animals whose skins are used for making drums must be captured alive, because dead animals yield distorted sounding skins. The best parts of skin are those taken from the animals' shoulders.
The strings used to stretch the skins and attach them to the frames must be cut from skins on the backs of buffaloes with 50-cm long horns. This skin is then scrubbed with salt and ash to enhance their flexibility and durability.
Baranung is drummed, manually only by shamans, while ginang, placed by the side of ones' chest, are beaten by whittled sticks.
Each of a pair of ginang drums has its own gender: the bigger one to the left-hand side is yang and called trong ong (Mr Drum) with more bass, and the smaller one to the right-hand side is yin, trong ba (Mrs Drum), with higher pitches.
"Every time I make a set of drums, I have to make offerings to the Brahmanist genies and ask for their blessings," says 79-year-old Phu Sang who lives at the Cham temple of Po Rome and has been making drums for more than 60 years.
"The offerings include eggs, bananas, wine, betels and areca."
He explains that fixing valuable ancient drums that have suffered the wear and tear of time requires strictly observed rituals in which shamans make offerings and summon the drums' spirits in advance.
Deeply human
"A full set of instruments impersonate a human being," explains Thien Sanh Thiem of Huu Duc Village.
"A saranai cornet has seven holes which represent a head, two eyes, two ears, one nose, and one mouth."
Likewise, the haranung drum stands for a trunk, the twin ginang drums are two legs and accompanying sticks symbolise two hands.
"It's like a soulful human being with all kinds of moods and feelings: happy or sad, pained or cheerful... which must be reflected by the artists' performances," Thiem says.
"Superficial players can't reach their spirits, which bridge one's mind with another's," he adds.
Uncertain future
Sang bemoans the painful reality that some Cham villages now have no custodians of the arts, even though they possess a handful of instrument sets.
He is now able to turn out just six sets for a whole year, given that his infirmity has eroded his dexterity with tools.
However, what hurts him most is that none of his sons want to learn the craft, leaving a void once he and his peers pass away.
"They prefer to do carpentry, which pays better," says Sang who has received many foreign reporters and cultural experts to his house over the years.
Sang now finds himself performing at Cham festivities where he can impart his skills to the younger generation so that "I will have some playing at my funeral".
Thiem is happier that he can teach the traditional craft and art to five of his sons and some other boys in the village.
Recalling his father's death wish, he says: "Without the drums, the festivities will be soul less and the Cham people will forget who they are".