Daires

As a daires the frame drum has a diameter of 20–50 cm, while as a bendir it is 50–55 cm, though sometimes smaller. In tambourines (defia or daires), small brass cymbals (zilia) are set at equal distances around the wooden frame. The bendir has no cymbals.

A membranophone (percussion) instrument that we find in different forms and cultures all over the world: daf, bendir and riq in the Arab countries and North Africa as far as Morocco; def or tef in Turkey. The riq is also called the 'Constantinopolitan tambourine', because it was and still is popular around Istanbul. In northern Scandinavia, following shamanic tradition, it is made of pine wood and deerskin, is called kenim, and is played with a wooden or bone stick.

In Ireland, where it is the traditional percussion instrument par excellence, it is called the bodhrán, with two crossed sticks at the back as a handle, and it too is played with a wooden stick. In Egypt and Sudan it appears as the tar. Among the Native Americans of North America it had a leading role and was made of pine and deer or ox hide. In India there is the kanjira, made of lizard skin with just one pair of cymbals. The Roma brought it to Brazil via Portugal, where it became the pandeiro, the most popular percussion instrument of carnival and samba. In Latin America it is also found as the tamborim, the smallest of the percussion instruments used, made of wood, metal or plastic, with a head of snakeskin or plastic.

In Greece, depending on its form and region, it is called daires, defi, dachares, tagaraki, dagriadaki, dageres or toumbanas. In Thrace it is made with goat, sheep or hare skin, painted with images (double-headed eagles, fish, flowers…) and decorated with coloured ribbons. Together with the gaida it forms the traditional mainland pair of instruments. The daires is also played on its own, accompanying songs and dancers, especially in face-to-face dances.

Its history is as old as matriarchy, which is to say lost in the depths of time and myth. It is the first membranophone ever used by humans, which is why it exists in almost every country, in different sizes, with different names and playing techniques.

It was played mainly by women in religious, ecstatic ceremonies (the word 'orgiastic' should not be understood in today's sense: these were mainly healing rites, rather like today's group therapy). These rites have their roots in the ancient prehistoric matriarchal societies of the eastern Mediterranean.

To trace the history of the instrument we must go back to Rhea-Cybele, the 'Great Mother of the upper and lower world', to the mystery rites of the Great Mother, and to the symbolism of the circle in philosophy (the union of spirit and matter).