468 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [BTH, ANN. 38 
slung the drum at its two extremities, distant half a vara from the 
ground. The drum is a hollow tree-trunk, so huge that two men 
can hardly clasp it and three varas long, little more or less. It is 
complete in its whole circuit, and hollowed from one end to the 
other with fire and water. In the upper part they make their 
“skylights” ... and in between they make a half-moon like a 
mouth. On the timber, which is in the center of the half-moon, a 
blow has to be struck with a club-headed stick to make it sound, be- 
cause if struck anywhere else it sounds like a table or a door. Again, 
although it may be struck in the center of the half-moon, if it is 
not done with one or two mallets covered with a resin which they 
call currucay it won’t sound. More than this, although struck with 
the mallets thus prepared, neither will it sound unless they fix with 
peramaén cement, a pebblestone some 2 pounds in weight in the 
center of the drum below, exactly perpendicularly to the half- 
moon. ... The noise can be heard 4 leagues distant, and our In- 
dians say that the drums of the Caverre [Arawak stock], to whom 
the invention is attributed, can be heard farther (G, m, 101). 
Humboldt in more recent times came across a smaller but soime- 
what similar instrument higher up the Orinoco, at San Balthazar 
Mission, Atabapo River. This drum was a hollow cylinder of wood, 
2 feet long and 18 inches thick. It was beaten with great masses 
of dapicho [caoutchouc], which served as drumsticks. It had open- 
ings which could be stopped by the hand at will to vary the sounds, 
and was fixed on two light supports (AVH, u, 345). In the early 
fifties Spruce came across the larger kinds in the Rio Negro district, 
but his account and illustrations did not see the ight until another 
half century had passed, in 1908 (RS, 11, 426). Coudreau met with 
them among the Tariana (Arawak stock) of the Uaupes (Cou, 
um, 162). It was left to Koch-Griinberg, however, to give us the 
most accurate records of the larger-sized instruments as met with 
at the present day among branches of the Betoya stock and among 
the Uitoto, on the Tiquie and other tributaries of the Rio Negro 
(KKG, 1, 254, 276; 1, 291), where they may reach a length of up to 
1% meters. This traveler also relates how the Uitoto beat two of 
these drums at a time (a large and a small one) both for signaling 
and dance purposes, and describes how an extempore substitute for 
them is devised when they are on the road (XG, 1, 302-303). 
581. The Oyana had a primitive kind of drum struck with the feet, 
an apparatus mentioned both by Crévaux and De Goeje. The former 
describes it as a hole in the ground covered with a large sheet of 
bark, upon which the young men stamp rhythmically with the right 
leg, the left leg keeping the bark rigid and in place. With each move- 
ment they blow a short note on the bamboo trumpet (Cr, 245-250). 
