56 BULLETIN 136, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



A pair of small kettledrums (95146) are from Beirut, Syria. The 

 shells are of yellow brass, bowl shaped, ornamented with respousse 

 designs of animals, etc. One head of parchment is glued to the shell 

 of each drum. They are beaten with a tapering wooden stick. A 

 particularly interesting kettledrum was received in 1883 from the 

 Rajah of Tagore, India (9272G, pi. 24//). The shell is of tinned cop- 

 per. These drums are tied in a cloth around the waist when played 

 and beaten with the hands. No. 56194 is an Egyptian kettledrum 

 with a shell of thin wood or a section of a gourd. One rawhide head 

 is stretched over the drum and laced from holes made in its edge 

 to a rawhide ring around the base of the shell. The lacing is a raw- 

 hide thong; its ends formed into a loop for a handle. 



A kettledrum from Calcutta (92726) has a shell of tinned copper 

 and the tension of the head is adjusted by a round patch of black 

 cement placed a little to one side of the center. This drum is called 

 a Banya. The playing of these drums is a difficult art to acquire, 

 but is highly regarded in India. With these is shown a " mescal 

 drum " of the Kiowa Indians, made by stretching a rawhide head on 

 a common iron kettle (169082). The head is held in place by an 

 ingenious arrangement not duplicated in the entire collection. 



The largest specimen of kettledrum is from Egypt (56190). It has 

 a shell of beaten copper, 22 inches in diameter and 14 inches high, 

 with a row of heavy metal pins projecting about 2 inches below the 

 rim. The rawhide head is stretched across the drum when wet and 

 held by holes in the edge of the head, passed over the metal pins, and 

 bound by a rawhide thong. Two such drums differing in size are 

 slung across the neck of a camel and carried in religious processions 

 in Cairo, the larger drum on the right side of the camel. The ac- 

 companying illustration (pi. 22) was taken at the World's Fair, Chi- 

 cago, 1893. Another Egyptian kettledrum, one of a pair, is less than 

 8 inches in diameter and of proportionate height. The shell is of 

 beaten copper. The rawhide or parchment head is laced with raw- 

 hide from holes in its edges to a rawhide ring around the base. 



A group of interesting drums are of wood, having one head fas- 

 tened to a shell that is closed at the end opposite the head. The 

 structure may be a solid block of wood in which a resonance cham- 

 ber has been hollowed, or it may be a shell open at both ends with one 

 end covered by a circle of wood or heavy hide. 



A wooden drum of the former type was used by the negro*.- of 

 Angola in their fetish ceremonies. Three such drums from Africa 

 are shown. No. 18694 is made of a log of red wood and has a mortar- 

 shaped cavity, largest at the upper end. More decorative is 151141. 

 with its shell hollowed from a log of wood and ornamented with a 

 series of bands made of vertical furrows. One rawhide head is laced 



