1700-1750 YORUBA TWO-HEADED DRUM AFRICAN TRIBAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT from Slave Trade Period 
Purchased from collector in 1950 as being a drum from the Slave Trade.

The Yoruba diaspora consists of two main groupings, first were Yoruba's dispersed through Atlantic slave trade mainly to the western hemisphere and the second wave includes relatively recent migrants, the majority of which moved to the United Kingdom and the United States after major economic and political changes in the 1960s to 1980s

Sound copy and paste: https://folkways.si.edu/bata-drums-2/world/music/track/smithsonian

About the Drum
The two-headed drum has an hourglass shape, rounded top and bottom and the smaller center with the top being slightly larger.

The drum is referred to as a Bata drum and is of the Yoruba people of Nigeria.

The skin on both ends of the drum can only be non-castrated male deer skin or goat skin. To the Yoruba culture, the Bata drum has different parts which are, the wooden frame, animal skin - which brings out the tone, the pegs to hold the skin in place and pegs to hold the wood in place.

This drum is referred to as the Iyaalu (mother) bata drum and is the largest of a set of drums (typically three to four) used by the Yoruba people. 

The drum has carvings on the top, bottom, and center, faces and geometric tribal symbols.

There is a large hole on one of the center sides - for sound and tone.

Low reserve

Certificate of Authenticity

Provenance: Nigeria, Yoruba, private East Coast, USA collection