ROTH | MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 467 
American Indian drums. I have also gathered from the Carib 
and Warrau that the only animals from which they prepare the skins 
nowadays are the bush hog, acouri, baboon, deer, and sloth, and that 
efforts are always made to cover the ends of the drum with different 
skins. An old Pomeroon Arawak has informed me that in the old 
days, among his own people, the business end of the drum was covered 
with baboon hide, while the silent extremity was closed with deerskin. 
The preparation of the skin consists in cleaning, scraping, stretching, 
rubbing with ashes, and drying in the sun. Both Warrau and Carib 
have also assured me that in the Pomeroon area the head of the drum- 
stick used in the olden times to be made of the seed of the awarra 
palm. From what has already been mentioned about only one side 
.of the drum being struck, it need cause no surprise that but one drum- 
stick accompanies each instrument. This fact would appear to have 
been first noted by Schomburgk when he stated that he had never seen 
Indians with two drumsticks. 
579. Koch-Griinberg is of opinion that the skin drum (a cylinder 
with two skins) is not originally Indian, but probably an old pos- 
session of the Carib stock from the time of the first arrival of the 
Europeans. In support of his contention he points out that the 
Umaua, a Carib people to the westward of the upper Rio Negro, 
speak of the drum as tabulu, a corruption of the Spanish tambor 
(XG, 1, 123). It is true that the Wapishana speak of it as samur, 
while the Makusi and Pomeroon River Carib similarly call it sam- 
bura, a name also applied to an almost circular-shaped bay, once 
the site of a Carib Indian settlement (Br, 31) on the upper reaches 
of the river. So also do the Surinam Carib and Arawak call it sam- 
bula and samulam, respectively (PEN, 1,170). On the other hand, it 
should be remembered that the possession of a European name does 
not necessarily indicate European origin. For example, although the 
word perro, the Spanish for dog, is used by a large majority of the 
Indians, these animals were already met here at the time of the con- 
quest. What is more probable is that the two-skin drum was intro- 
duced through the Arawak and Carib Islanders from North America 
since the European invasion. Such an hypothesis would account for 
its silent end, its resounder, and its generally Spanish name. 
580. Place must be found here for the wooden drums—struck on 
the body, not on the ends—originally described from the western 
areas of the Guianas (pl. 171). Joest does not express himself clearly 
enough with regard to the big drums made of hollowed-out tree trunks 
in Surinam (WJ, 78) to allow of their being discussed here to any 
useful purpose. In the houses of the caciques, says Gumilla, there 
are fixed three poles in the form of a gallows (pl. 171 A). From the 
crosspiece on top, by means of two pliable vine ropes (bejuco) is 
