A ritual drum begins as a wooden shell, either a single log hollowed out, a plank frame steamed and bent into a hoop, or in some traditions a large trunk section carved and finished as one piece, over which a stretched animal hide is fixed by lacing, pegging or nailing depending on the specific drum tradition.
Specialist builders and painted heads
Building the shell and preparing the hide are usually two different skills, and in traditions where the drum head carries cosmological imagery, painted directly onto the stretched skin, the maker who paints it is often a specialist distinct from the one who built the frame, sometimes the same ritual specialist who will later use the finished drum. This is the exact craft that suffered when colonial and missionary authorities confiscated and burned Sami runebomme drums across Scandinavia, destroying not just objects but the specific building and painting knowledge tied to each one.
Who plays it, and what happens when the head splits
Depending on the tradition, a ritual drum is played only by a designated specialist, a shaman or ceremony leader, or by any participating community member in a more open, participatory rite, and the two roles are not interchangeable within a given tradition. A split or worn hide head is generally replaced rather than the whole drum discarded, since the wood shell, properly built, is expected to outlast several generations of hide heads stretched over it.