8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 80 
observation : “ There is evidently a set song and sentiment for every 
dance, for the songs are perfectly measured, and sung in exact time 
with the beat of the drum, and always with an uniform and in- 
variable set of sounds and expressions . . . which are expressed 
by the voice, though sometimes not given in any known lan- 
guage whatever. They have other dances and songs which are not 
so mystified, but which are sung and understood by every person in 
the tribe, being sung in their own language, with much poetry in 
them, and perfectly metered, but without rhyme.” 74 
Musicaut INstrRUMENTS 
Drums.—The Mandan appear to have used only the hand drum 
of the type common to many tribes and shown in plate 9, a, 5b. 
This was of various sizes, the smallest, perhaps, being that used in 
the Goose Women Society (pl. 13, a). This drum was decorated 
with drawings of goose tracks, but no mention was made of decora- 
tions on other drums. Sitting Crow said that some of the drums 
used in the men’s societies were “as large as he could reach around 
with histwoarms.” The average size was about 18 inches in diameter. 
The drumming stick illustrated in plate 9, a, is similar to that 
shown by Catlin in pictures of the Buffalo Society and other dances. 
A different kind of stick was used with the Goose Women Society 
drum, as shown in plate 13, 6. The writer’s informants remembered 
drums made of hide stretched over turtle shells. These may have 
been common to both tribes, as Pepper and Wilson state that “in 
the Buffalo dance the Turtle gods were represented by drums.” ” 
Ratries.—The principal types of rattles used by both Mandan and 
Hidatsa were, (1) a receptacle containing small stones or shot and 
fastened to a handle, and (2) a decorated stick to which pieces of 
deer hoof were loosely attached. The first type was used in the Black 
Mouth and Foolish Dog Societies (see pp. 48, 137). Two specimens 
of a Foolish Dog rattle are illustrated, one being made for the writer 
(pl. 9, ¢) and the other (pl. 19, 6) being in the collection of the North 
Dakota Historical Society. A photograph of the latter specimen was 
taken to the reservation and shown to the old men, who identified it 
as a rattle of this society.?* It consists of a rawhide receptacle con- 
taining shot or small pebbles and surrounded by short sections of tail 
feathers with stiff quills. Long feathers of the eagle were hung from 
this receptacle. The specimen is 18 inches long (exclusive of the loop 
21 Catlin, Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, vol. 1, 
p. 126. 
An Hidatsa shrine, footnote, p. 299. 
23 The writer acknowledges the courtesy of Dr. Melvin R. Gilmore, curator of the North 
Dakota Historical Society, in loaning this specimen for photography. Other spicimens 
thus loaned were the “ Mushroom” rattle (pl. 9, d@), the Goose Women Society drum 
(pl. 18, @), and the headdress worn in the Buffalo Society (pl. 19, a). 
