I was wondering if the expression "at tom-tom time" has a specific meaning or, as I found it in a poem, is it just the author's own device?

TIA,

Laurent

Never heard of it.  Can you cite the source?

Isn't beating the tom-toms the same as beating the drums? You beat the drums, the tom-toms, wanting to deliver a message.  

A little perhaps like smoke signals, another way to deliver a message.

Nanna

Thanks for your replies.

The source is a poem called "Chickamungus" by James Reeves, which I am currently translating into French for the thread "La Poésie" in the French forum.

The verse reads:

[...]
At tom-tom time he romps and roves
Among the odorous dragon-groves.
[...]
("he" being a mysterious beast called "Chickamungus", which lives in the said groves.)

Laurent

American Indian Drums

"The most important Native American instrument was and still is the drum, as you can tell by going to any powwow or Indian event. Different tribes have different traditions about the drum and how to play it, but the basic construction is very similar in most tribes: a wooden frame or a carved and hollowed-out log, with finely tanned buckskin or elkskin stretched taut across the opening by sinew thongs. Traditionally American Indian drums are large, two to three feet in diameter, and they are played communally by groups of men who stand around them in a circle. However, there were also some tribes in which each drummer had his own instrument, and it is possible to buy a smaller Native American hand drum for either musical or decorative purposes. (These hand drums are the ones that are sometimes called "tomtoms" by non-native people--contrary to popular belief, tomtom is not an American Indian word, but rather an old British word for a child's drum toy.)

If you are looking to buy a drum that was actually made by Native Americans--either because it's important to you to have the real thing or because you want to support native people with your purchase--then here is our directory of American Indian artists whose drums are available online. If you have a website of Indian drums to add to this list, let us know. We gladly advertise any individual native artist or native-owned art store here free of charge, provided that all drums were made by tribally recognized American Indian, Inuit, or First Nations artists.

Thank you for your interest in Native American art! "

http://www.native-languages.org/drums.htm

Thank you for your extensive research!

Although I did know what "tom(-)tom" means (as we have almost the same word in French: "tamtam"), your reminder about Native Americans shed some new light on the poem.

In fact, the word "native(s)" appears twice in the poem but it did not occur to me that the story could be located in North America!

I was actually wondering whether the phrase "at tom-tom time" could mean something else that "the specific time of day [if any?!] when natives play tom-tom".

Laurent

[Edited by L C on August 31, 2005 4:35 PM]

Hi Laurent,

Translating poety is a difficult task. As difficult as it is interesting. I have tried many times to translate one of my favorite Danish poems, but I simply cannot capture the imagery.

This little bit: "...tomtom is not an American Indian word, but rather an old British word for a child's drum toy.)" made me think of an English nursery filled with noisy children all geared up by the hypnotic rhythm of their drum toys. Do you think that 'the tom-tom time' could refer to the time when children are especially noisy and unmanagerable? In Danish, we call this time 'ulvetimen' the hour of the wolves or the wolf hour.

Or do think a child-like state of delight, or something having to do with a child-like hypnotic state?

Now you have me thinking and enjoying it too

Nanna

PS: Children can be very basic and natively innocent in their behaviour.

I don't have a problem with the notion "tom-tom" = "Indian drum".  It's more a question of whether the writer is using it in that sense, or whether it may be idiolect; this is, after all, a poem for children.

I've never translated a poem, or any other work of creative literature.  However, I think here you're going to have to find an equivalent from French children's verse.  Notice that the English "tom-tom time" is pleasing to the ear, with its three monosyllables and up-front t and m. 

Some works are embedded in a cultural context that makes translation almost impossible.  Bart Simpson's Whoa, dude! just doesn't sound right to me as ¡Órale güey! ...though that is a nice approximation.  I tried once to impress upon a translator that you cannot translate certain dishes from the English Caribbean into Spanish; you just have to describe them.  This person kept insisting that there be a Spanish equivalent for "calaloo" or "johnny cakes"....

However, from etymonline:

tom-tom
1693, "drum" (originally used in India), from Hindi tam-tam, probably of imitative origin (cf. Sinhalese tamat tama and Malay tong-tong).

Therefore, the "Indians" may not be those what we think!
Also, in French, "tamtam" commonly refers to African drums too.

... made me think of an English nursery filled with noisy children all geared up by the hypnotic rhythm of their drum toys. Do you think that 'the tom-tom time' could refer to the time when children are especially noisy and unmanagerable? In Danish, we call this time 'ulvetimen' the hour of the wolves or the wolf hour. Or do think a child-like state of delight, or something having to do with a child-like hypnotic state?

Yes, that's an interesting point of view

Laurent

[Edited by L C on August 31, 2005 4:23 PM]

Right! It reminds me of "the Tumtum tree" in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky I rendered it as "tamtamier" in my own translation of Alice into French.

Some works are embedded in a cultural context that makes translation almost impossible.

True. If we are talking of the sound effect of words, the challenge consists of coming up with words or phrases that will produce a similar effect in the target language...

Laurent