SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 625 



gither till it be so tought and stiffe, that they may beat upon it as upon a 

 drumme. (Smith, John, Tyier ec- . 1907, p. 107.) 



This Strachey rewords: 



For their drums they have a great deepe platter of wcod, the mouth whereof 

 covering with a skyn, at each corner they ty a waluutt, which meeting on the 

 back side neere the bottome, with a small cord they twitch them together untill 

 they be so tough and stiffe, that they maye beat upon them as doe wee upon a 

 drum, and they yield a reasonable rattling sownde. (Strachey, 1849, p. 107.) 



However, Beverley (1705, bk. 3, p. 55) says "Their Drums are made 

 of a Skin, stretched over an Earthen Pot half full of water." In the 

 Nottoway town Byrd saw a drum made of "a large Gourd with a Skin 

 bract tort over the Mouth of it" (Bassett, 1901, p. 114). 



The drum used by the Waxhaw is described by Lawson (1860, p. 

 67) as "made of a dressed deer's skin, tied hard upon an earthen por- 

 ridge pot." For mention of the Ais drum, see page 765. 



The music observed by Adair at Chickasaw festivals consisted "of 

 two clay -pot drums covered on the top with thin wet deer-skins, 

 drawn very tight, on which each of the noisy musicians beats with 

 a stick, accompanying the noise with their voices" (Adair, 1775, p. 

 116). Bartram praises Creek and Seminole songs as accompanied by 

 the drum and rattle, but has nothing to say regarding the construc- 

 tion of the instruments (Bartram, 1792, pp. 243, 503). Timberlake, 

 Iberville, and Penicaut barely mention their use by the Cherokee, 

 Houma, and Pascagoula, respectively. Penicaut says they were small. 

 Timberlake observed that the Cherokee he encountered used not* only 

 their home-made drums but some drums they had captured from the 

 English after the massacre at Fort Loudon. (Timberlake, Williams 

 ed., 1927; p. 63; Margry, 1875-86, vol. 4, pp. 174-176; vol. 5, pp. 388- 

 390; Swanton, 1911, p. 285, 303.) For use of a stone as a drum, see 

 page 693. 



The following description of a Choctaw drum was obtained by Mr. 

 Bushnell from the band of that tribe living at Bayou Lacomb, Louisi- 

 ana, in 1908-9 : 



This is 30 inches in height and 15 inches in diameter. It is made of a section 

 of a black gum tree ; the cylinder wall is less than 2 inches in thickness. The 

 head consists of a piece of untanned goat skin. The skin is stretched over the 

 open end, while wet and pliable, and is passed around a hoop made of hickory 

 about half an inch thick. A similar hoop is placed above the first. To the 

 second hoop are attached four narrow strips of rawhide, each of which is 

 fastened to a peg passing diagonally through the wall of the drum. To tighten 

 the head of the drum it is necessary merely to drive the peg farther in. In 

 this respect, as well as in general form, the drum resembles a specimen from 

 Virginia in the British Museum, as well as the drum even now used on the 

 west coast of Africa. It is not possible to say whether this instrument is a 

 purely American form or whether it shows the influence of the negro. (Bush- 

 nell, 1909 a, p. 22.) 



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