A bembe, also called a tambor (drum), is the drumming feast of Santeria: a celebration held in honour of a particular orisha, at which consecrated drums, most famously the sacred bata drums, are played to call and salute the spirits, and the community sings and dances to a sequence of rhythms and songs each belonging to a specific orisha.
The event is at once devotional and social, a way of giving pleasure and honour to the orisha, of fulfilling promises made, and of drawing the community together, and at its height an orisha may be understood to descend and mount, or possess, one of the dancers, coming among the worshippers to greet, counsel and bless them. The drums used in the most sacred form are themselves consecrated instruments, and the whole occasion illustrates the central place of music and dance in a tradition where rhythm is the ordinary means by which the human and divine worlds are brought into contact.