RoTH] MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 463 
some 28 years ago. It was a bow about 4 feet long with the string 
drawn very taut, and a gourd or calabash fixed to end in such a way 
that the string passed through a narrow slot cut in the gourd, emitted 
a fairly loud note when struck with the finger. I can not remember a 
special name for it other than the general term of samuru, applied 
to all such instruments. Yaté is neither a Wapishana or Atorai word. 
The thing could easily be of African origin; e. g., escaped slaves from 
Brazil.” The Carib Islanders had a kind of instrument (une forme 
@orgues) made of gourds upon which they placed a cord made of 
the string of a reed called pite; and this cord, being touched, made a 
sound which they thought delightful (RO, 509). 
572. Hilhouse was also the first to record what he describes as a 
“viol.” By raising the fibers of the arm [of an ite leaf] and plac- 
ing a bridge under, they [Warrau] made a rude kind of viol (pl. 
167 A), to the music of which they danced (HiC, 239). At Tapa- 
cooma, in the Pomeroon district,some 80 years ago, Alexander induced 
the Arawak to play their simple viol with three strings (A, 1,132). At 
Quatata village, on the Pirara River, Brown saw what he calls ‘an 
aeolian musical instrument, of Indian manufacture, composed of 
three large leafstalks of the ite palm, stuck upright in the ground, 
a portion of the hard outer part of which was cut longitudinally in 
three parts and raised on a bridge like the strings of a fiddle. The 
wind blowing through these produced very sweet but mournful 
musical sounds (BB, 266). Appun also makes mention of such a 
musical appliance in the same district (App, m, 404). Among the 
Makusi, similar instruments, but with a bridge at either end (fig. 
239 A), were said to be fastened upright on the tops of the houses 
(Ti, Deec., 1884, p. 250). A curious up-to-date development, com- 
monly met with among the more civilized Pomeroon and other In- 
dians, is a native-made violin (fig. 239 B), combining the features 
of the instruments just described with those of the European article. 
This is manufactured from a short length of thick bamboo, along 
which are stretched the three, sometimes four, kuraua-twine strings, 
attached to pegs, and raised from off the underlying convex surface 
by means of a bridge. Strong kuraua twine also keeps the bow bent. 
The squaking sounds to which this modern innovation gives rise will 
account for the Warrau calling this or any European violin by the 
onomatopeic term of sekke-sekke. 
573. An undoubtedly indigenous form of rattle is the ceremonial 
spear-rattle (pl. 34 A) of the Desana and Tukano Indians of the 
Rio Tiquie where rounded pebbles are inserted, by means of two 
longitudinal slits, into the hollowed-out spindlelike enlargement at 
the distal extremity of the spear (KG, 1, 345). Another is the bam- 
boo, or other “ hollow ” wood, with contained stones. Thus, with the 
