According to the Yao nationality's historical book "Panwang Coupon", in the 11th century BC, the ancestor of the Yao nationality, Panpao, helped King Ping defeat King Gao and was rewarded by King Ping. One day, King Panhu went into the mountains to hunt, but unfortunately was knocked off a cliff by a goat and died on a paulownia tree.
The third princess was so grief-stricken that her children cut down the paulownia tree to make a big drum and six small drums, and killed and skinned the goat as the drum surface. After the drums were made, the three princesses carried big drums on their backs, and their sons and daughters carried small drums, playing, dancing and singing, offering sacrifices to King Panhu. Therefore, the Yao people have followed the practice of playing the yellow mud drum.

Huangni drums have a long history. In Yungang Grottoes, one of the three major grottoes in China, we can see the history of human use of waist drums as early as the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Shen Liao, a native of the Song Dynasty, also wrote in "Treading the Panqu": "The Xiangshui and the east and west are stepping on the pan, the green smoke and white mist are general trees, and there is no money for drinking in the club, and the god of music plays the long waist drum."
It reflects the history of Yao nationality ancestors living in Xiangshui using waist drums, and further shows that Yao nationality's use of waist drums has entered the sacrificial activities of Yao nationality society. Gu Yanwu of the Ming Dynasty described more clearly the use of waist drums by the Yao people living in Hunan at that time:
"The drum is made of wood, with a diameter of about a dou, hollow at both ends, and four feet long. It is called a long drum, and a two-foot drum is called a short drum." Judging from the size and length of the drums described in historical materials, they are basically the same as the yellow mud male and female drums we use.

There has always been a saying that "Yao does not leave the drum", the yellow mud drum is sacred in the hearts of the Yao people, and it is a symbol of the Yao culture. On the tall walls of the Jinxiu Yao Nationality Museum, two yellow mud drums over 3 meters long are embossed as symbols of national culture. From the yellow mud drum, it can be associated with a series of cultures of the Yao nationality.
It is worth mentioning that in the 1990s, at the invitation of the Japanese, old folk artists from Liuxiang Township, Jinxiu County, under the leadership of the Autonomous County Ethnic Committee, formed a yellow mud drum performance team to Japan for a one-month folk cultural exchange. It has enhanced the friendship between the people of China and Japan.