Rotating single-membrane drum (brown paper), rattle drum. Stick runs through middle of drum and is wrapped in red paper with a raffia effect at the top. Red decorations on skin and frame of drum are paper which has been stuck on. Back membrane is undecorated. Paper membranes on each side are made from a separate piece. Beaters attached with thread are also of brown paper. Diameter of membranes: 165mm. 230mm measurement above includes extended tassles.
This toy drum was collected by the New Zealand based composer Jack Body in Java in 1977. He bought it from a street seller in the town of Jogjakarta. The rattle drum design, in which the beaters are attached to the sides of the frame in such a way that they strike the membrane when the instrument is spun back and forth, has a long history in temple music traditions of Tibet, China, Korea and Japan, but in Indonesia is found only as a toy. Because of this discrepancy, Body speculated that the toy may be a surviving remnant of an 'adult' instrument that has since fallen from use in the region.
