582 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



General Tliruston,' speakiug of stone tubes of hourglass form, quotes 

 the following from Judge Haywood's History of Tennessee: 



When the stoue trumpet is blown through, it makes a sound that can be heard, 

 perhaps, 2 miles, and that probably it was used for similar purposes to those for 

 which the trumi^ets of the Israelites were used, namely, prin- 

 cipally to convene assemblies and to regulate the movements of 

 an army. 



General Thruston's experience with these tubes does 

 not seem to have been satisfactory, for he adds: 



We have exhausted our blowing powers upon two similar 

 "stone trumpets" in our collection without eliciting any satis- 

 factory resjionse in the way of nuisic or noise, and we scarcely 

 think it possible that these tubular objects could have been de- 

 signed "for martial music," as stated. 



No expression of opinion is here made as to the 

 correctness of these claims, but we have not ignored 

 or reiected them. To do so would be to decide the 

 question adversely and cut oft" further argument. It 

 is deemed wiser to insert the figures of these objects, 

 calling attention to their claims as musical instru- 

 ments, to the possible end that 

 future investigators may discover 

 something concerning their use and 

 thus be enabled to settle the ques- 

 tion. So far as the writer can dis- 

 cover in the publislied descriptions 

 of these objects, their use as mu- 

 sical instruments is rarely ad- 

 vanced. 



CLIFF DWELLERS. 



Fig. 222. 



FRAGMENT.^ OF 

 WOODEN FLUTE. 



Colorado. 



Nordenskiold, Cliff Dwellers 

 of the Mesa Verde, p. 101, 

 flg. 64. 



Mr. W. H. Holmes,- in speaking 

 of the pottery of the ancient Pueb- 

 los, says : 



The ancient people had not devoted 

 their ceramic art to trivial uses; there 

 are no toys, no rattles, and no grotesque 

 figures. 



This remark would seem to apply equally as well to 

 the Cliff Dwellers; but that musical instruments 

 made of other materials were not unknown to these 

 people is evidenced by the fact that among the 

 objects mentioned by the late G. Nordenskiold as 

 coming from the cliff ruins of the Mesa Yerde, in southwestern Colo- 

 rado, are fragments of a wooden flute and a small bone pierced with 



Fig. 223. 



BONE WHISTLE (?). 



Uolorado. 



ordenskiold. Cliff Dwellers of 

 the Mesa Verde, description of 

 plate XLI. 



' Antiquities of Tennessee, p. 282. 



^Pottery of the Ancient Pueblos, Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy, 1882-83, p. 272. 



