To treat primitive mankind as a type, to put it under one head, to make one theorem cover all mankind, as it were, seems almost an unwarranted boldness.  But I think it is warranted when we consider that, aside from language, music is the very first sign of the dawn of civilization.  There is even the most convincingly direct testimony in its favour.  For instance: 

In the Bay of Bengal, about six hundred miles from the Hoogly mouth of the Ganges, lie the Andaman Islands.  The savages inhabiting these islands have the unenviable reputation of being, in common with several other tribes, the nearest approach to primeval man in existence.  These islands and their inhabitants have been known and feared since time immemorial; our old friend Sinbad the Sailor, of “Arabian Nights” fame, undoubtedly touched there on one of his voyages.  These savages have no religion whatever, except the vaguest superstition, in other words, fear, and they have no musical instruments of any kind.  They have reached only the rhythm stage, and accompany such dances as they have by clapping their hands or by stamping on the ground.  Let us now look to Patagonia, some thousands of miles distant.  The Tierra del Fuegians have precisely the same characteristics, no religion, and no musical instruments of any kind.  Retracing our steps to the Antipodes we find among the Weddahs or “wild hunters” of Ceylon exactly the same state of things.  The same description applies without distinction equally well to the natives in the interior of Borneo, to the Semangs of the Malay Peninsula, and to the now extinct aborigines of Tasmania.  According to Virchow their dance is demon worship of a purely anthropomorphic character; no musical instrument of any kind was known to them.  Even the simple expression of emotions by the voice, which we have seen is its most primitive medium, has not been replaced to any extent among these races since their discovery of speech, for the Tierra del Fuegians, Andamans, and Weddahs have but one sound to represent emotion, namely, a cry to express joy; having no other means for the expression of sorrow, they paint themselves when mourning.

It is granted that all this, in itself, is not conclusive; but it will be found that no matter in what wilderness one may hear of a savage beating a drum, there also will be a well-defined religion.

Proofs of the theory that the drum antedates all other musical instruments are to be found on every hand.  For wherever in the anthropological history of the world we hear of the trumpet, horn, flute, or other instrument of the pipe species, it will be found that the drum and its derivatives were already well known.  The same may be said of the lyre species of instrument, the forerunner of our guitar (kithara), tebuni or Egyptian harp, and generally all stringed instruments, with this difference, namely, that wherever the lyre species was known, both pipe and drum had preceded it.  We never find the lyre without the drum, or the pipe without the drum; neither do we find the lyre and the drum without the pipe.  On the other hand, we often find the drum alone, or the drum and pipe without the lyre.  This certainly proves the antiquity of the drum and its derivatives.