A nine-foot-tall slit drum from Ambrym Island in the South Pacific stands like a sentinel just inside the entrance to the Grace L. Beede Gallery, where many of the NMM's most exotic instruments are exhibited.

Here is the enigma, the romance, the mystery of the unknown...instruments from the great civilizations of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific...a zither built as a crocodile...a magnificent Burmese arched harp...an Indian mayuri, shaped like a peacock...hand-painted Persian instruments...exotic, hand-carved drums from the jungles of New Guinea...all of them evocative of adventure in distant lands.