The Frogs and the Drum Story

This post is part of the Cruel Kids, The Animals I Know and How to Neuter a Cow series.

The drum is a serious object in Asian culture. It is loud, and it is “official.” Usually a village has two drums: one for the local school and one for the church, often used during funeral processions.

What are drums made of? Cow or ox hides, I believe. It was always intriguing to see one up close. You could actually see the hair left on the hide where nails held it to the edge. For us kids, seeing a drum up close was a treat.

One of our favorite activities was catching frogs in the rice paddies. Fishing was fun, but catching frogs was better. They were easier to grab and, being hefty in size, more exciting to haul in.

Although I had eaten frogs before, I do not remember if we ever caught them for food. Mostly it was for play. Speaking of “play,” one of the more gory and disgusting things we ever did was try to make drums out of frog skins and discarded condensed milk cans.

I used to hang out with a kid who lived behind our house. He was more of a village bully than anything, but it was a small village so eventually we all played together, once bruises from the fights had healed.

This kid was definitely odd. I remember one day when a bunch of us were walking back with a bucket of frogs and talking about how we could make a drum. We all agreed that for it to be real, it had to be made of real skin. One thing led to another, and the butcher’s son had the bright idea of using frog skins.

Skinning a frog with a razor was cruel, but we all stood and watched as he did it with surprising speed. We had seen him help his parents skin cows, so it wasn’t entirely strange to see him do the same to a frog.

A big frog produced just enough skin to cover one end of a can. We helped him find enough rubber bands to tighten the skin, then left it to dry in the sun for a day.

The next day, each of us had a drum and a chopstick, ready to pretend we were directing a funeral procession. The sad truth came quickly: frog skin was not strong enough for drums. Within minutes, they all broke. I don’t think we ever made more after that, but it was probably one of the most messed up things we did as kids.

It is surprising that everyone grew up to be mostly well-adjusted adults. Mostly.

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