music and musical instruments: The Americas 747 voice was believed to carry the spirit of the orator or singer in addition to articulating clearly the content of prayers In gatherings around sacred fires only the sound of tobacco offerings crackling in the flames could be heard accompanying the singing or chanting voice An early version of the Iroquois Dawn Song, a ritual that marked the commencement of the ritual calendar, is an example of a ceremony that involved only the human voice However, most American Indian musical expression also involved a steady beat of drumming and other percussive instruments Drums and rattles accompanied the voice in celebration in the harvest dances of the Pueblo Indians, the chanting of creation myths in the Canadian woodlands, and the initiation ceremonies of the Pacific Northwest peoples The drums of the North American Plains, Great Basin, and Eastern Woodlands were most commonly round elk-skin or buckskin drums Some could be as much as three feet across and were stood on legs and beaten in a circle at large gatherings Others were held by hand for use either in accompaniment to other instruments or in more solitary shamanic rituals, as in Pueblo and Eastern Woodland contexts Both varieties were beaten with sticks, creating at once a sharp percussion and a low, resounding tone Several Iroquois groups played a small Rattle; slip-painted ceramic, Maya culture, Mexico, 700–1000 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Constance McCormick Fearing, Photograph © 2006 Museum Associates/LACMA [AC1996.146.45]) drum partially filled with water whose tone changed as the drummer turned the water inside A variety of rattles accompanied Indian drumming throughout the Americas Rattles often were made of wood in North America and were constructed with a basketry bulb in the Andes Animal rattles were also made and could be varied in their construction, from the rawhide types of the American Northwest to eastern examples made of entire shells of turtles, gutted and then filled with seeds or pebbles Shamans of the Northwest Coast employed wooden rattles that were elaborately carved into the shape of certain animal spirit guides or clan emblems These rattles, carved expertly with stone tools, were fully fledged sculptures in their own right and were often painted and inlaid with abalone or other pearlescent shells The Aztec employed a great many percussive instruments Members of the Eagle and Jaguar warrior classes marked human bones with notches, which they played with a scraper at memorial ceremonies for soldiers lost in battle The rasped bone was often accompanied by the rhythm of a turtle shell repeatedly struck by the multiple tips of a deer antler Aztec drums were made either by stretching animal skin over a wooden barrel or by cutting an H-shaped slit into a hollowed log The latter, called teponaztli, were stood up on tripods to avoid deadening the drum’s tone As the loosened tongues between the slits were hit by sticks, they vibrated, producing a deep pulse that resonated briefly Like Northwest Coast rattles, teponaztli were sometimes decoratively carved with zoomorphic symbols, in the Aztec case representing the warrior class In dance grounds and sacred caves the Taíno of the Caribbean performed rituals dedicated to their various zemi, nature spirits usually represented by wooden and stone sculptures or petroglyphs During these celebrations Taíno musicians played slit drums, similar to those of the Aztecs, in a steady rhythm while the shamans played wooden rattles or maracas As with slit drums and other percussion instruments, maracas had developed on the South American mainland some time in the first millennium They were not always used as percussion instruments, however The maraca consisted of a small gourd containing seeds, with a handle attached on one end in the manner of a rattle Shamans and chanters from the Caribbean Indians to those of the Amazon and Panama would twirl or rotate the instrument to create a whirring sound rather than shaking it like a rattle After it was encountered in the Caribbean islands by Europeans, the maraca eventually became a popular instrument in Latin American music However, those later musicians did not play it like an Amerindian idiophone, choosing to shake it back and forth like a percussive rattle instead