460 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH, ANN. 38 
attached.to its stalk is left open. According as the size of the gourd 
is larger or smaller, so is the sound either lower or higher pitched” 
(G, 1,202). From the context of the author’s description (pl. 160 B) 
the instrument was apparently specially used at the funeral cere- 
monies. The present-day Warrau, on the other hand, used it at all or 
any of their dances. They call it serér-e, and manufacture it as fol- 
lows (fig. 238): A circular wooden pencil (p) about 3 or 34 inches 
Fic. 288.—Manufacture of the serore reed instrument. A, Side view; B, section showing 
the excavated pencil (p), bamboo strip (b), pear-shaped gourd (g), beeswax (iw), and 
tube (t). 
long and one-half inch in diameter is gouged in a V-shaped groove 
for about two-thirds of its length, the area along which this cut is 
made being subsequently planed down flat. A thin delicate bamboo 
strip (6), some 7 or 8 inches long, is then tied onto the gouged ex- 
cavated surface and along the flattened edges of this pencil, the 
proximal extremity of the strip being purposely bent slightly up- 
ward. A pear-shaped gourd, perforated at either extremity, is now 
