Keeping in Touch

In the old days, before mobile phones, people had different ways of communicating over long distances. Lucy Marr looks at some of these methods.

Smoke signals are well known from Hollywood western films. They were first used in North America and China hundreds of years ago. By passing a blanket over a fire, you can make a puff of smoke. If you are careful, you can control the size and shapes of the puffs to create signals. However, you can only send simple, short messages such as ‘everything is okay’, ‘danger’ or ‘help!’.

Smoke signals can be seen from a long way off but they are useless if you want to keep something secret. Everybody in the area knows what you’re saying - it’s a bit like listening to people on their mobile phones on the bus!

Talking drums can send quite complicated information. And they’re loud - you can hear them up to eight kilometres away. They were first used in West Africa. When Europeans were first exploring the forests there, they were surprised to find the natives knew they were coming. The use of drums spread to South America and the Caribbean during the slave trade. In fact, talking drums were banned because slaves were using them to communicate in a secret code.

Whistling languages are very rare. People whistle messages to each other on the Canary Island La Gomera. The origins of the language are unknown but it probably came from the Berber people of Morocco. Until recently, it was dying out, but now children on the island have to learn it at school. Silbo sounds a bit like a bird song and has a vocabulary over 4,000 words! People originally used it to communicate over the steep hills and valleys of the island but now it has other uses. Juan Cabello, a resident of the island, says: ‘I use it for everything - to call my wife, to tell my kids something, or to find a friend in a crowd. It’s useful for just about everything but not very good for romance - everyone on the island would hear what you were saying!’