CULTURE OF PEOPLE OF SOUTHEASTERN PANAMA 125 



The pottery three note flute collected by the Marsh-Darien expe- 

 dition from the San Bias coast Tule (Cat. No. 327375, U.S.N.M., 

 pi. 7, No. 5) is clearly of the same type as the Doraskean pottery 

 flutes described by Doctor Holmes and was probably made by the 

 same people. Although collected on the San Bias coast, the instru- 

 ment is superior in the paste and slip employed, in firing, and design, 

 to the pottery ware of the living Darien tribes. It appears that 

 the crude Tule two-note armadillo head bone flute is a borrowed 

 design modeled after this ancient Chiriqui pottery instrument of the 

 same design. The Tule pottery flute has two laterally placed lut- 

 ings, each in the form of a loop for attachment of suspension cord. 

 The mouthpiece orifice is placed at the top margin. One of the 

 finger holes is situated on the lateral surface in line with one mid- 

 way between the mouthpiece orifice and the basal end (pi. 7, No. 5) ; 

 a second finger hole is placed at the center of the much constricted 

 basal end, so that the capacity is three notes, and the fingering is 

 similar to the Chiriqui flute. A transversely placed diaphragm 

 divides the flute into two equal compartments. It has been im- 

 possible to determine the function of this centrally placed dia- 

 phragm, as the " whistle " mouthpiece orifice supplies the necessary 

 surface edge to set the impinging air current vibrating. 



Although the similarity in form of the armadillo head bone flute 

 of Darien and of the pottery flute is such as to lead to the supposi- 

 tion that the latter is a life modeling in pottery of the armadillo, 

 it is, instead, probably patterned after a shell drum. Doctor Holmes 

 describes a similar instrument as follows : 



There are a number of shapes copied from other musical instruments or 

 from objects of art, such as vases. A very interesting specimen, modeled in 

 imitation of a drum, has not only the general shape of that instrument, but 

 the skin head, with its bands and cords of attachment, is truthfully repre- 

 sented (p. 165). 



The resemblance to a drum noted in the pottery flute (whistle) 

 from Chiriqui figured and described by Doctor Holmes is no more 

 striking than is a similar resemblance to a drum to be noted in the 

 pottery flute from the San Bias coast. The conclusion must follow 

 that although the Tule do not use a drum, their ancestors or the 

 tribe formerly occupying their coastal slope were familiar with the 

 drum and modeled pottery flutes in similar design. The Tule of 

 to-day constructs a bone flute resembling the ancient pottery flute, 

 although all knowledge on his part of the former use of the drum 

 has vanished. The fact that a tribe has flutes and no drums is not 

 proof that their earliest instrument was not the drum. There are 

 well-known cases of the " dropping out " of musical instruments. 

 In Guatemala the marimba has become a national instrument. Prof. 



