[Linda]

“The Instrument they danct to was an Indian-drum, that is, a large Gourd with a Skin bract tort over the Mouth of it.” William Byrd, 1728, on the music of the Nottoway.

First you need a good sized gourd, about 15-16″ in diameter. The largest gourd you can hold under your arm. It needs to be a very thick gourd that had a long growing season. The wall of the gourd should be at least 3/8″ thick. You want to slice off the top of the gourd to make about a 12″ opening. Stack up a pile of books, till you get to a spot that will give you that diameter, then prop your marker on the books and mark where you will cut. Make a pilot hole with a drill, then cut with a jigsaw. Be careful at the very end, you don’t want the gourd to break as the two pieces separate.

Discard the seeds and the other dried up gunk in the gourd, and scrape off what you can of the fibers and loose corky stuff. Spray or lightly dampen the gourd inside and out with either a bleach solution or a disinfecting spray like Odo-Ban to kill the mold that all gourds have.

Apply a stain. I used a leather dye, and tung oil for a finish. This is not period correct, but it’s effective at preserving the gourd, so I used it.

You’ll need some rawhide for the drum head. I used deer skin we had from the deer who totalled our truck last winter. That was a pain. The hide had some rotten spots, eventually I put the hide into a bleach solution, which was the only thing that killed the smell. It’s sweet now, but I don’t know if I altered the elasticity or anything. Moscow Fur and Hide sells goat skins for $10 a piece, that’s probably a better way to go.

Soak the hide in water overnight. Make a mark on the lip of the gourd so you don’t loose you bearings. Place the better looking side of the skin down and place the gourd on top of it. Transfer the guide mark to the skin. Draw the diameter of the gourd onto the skin. The gourd isn’t perfectly symmetrical, so neither should you skin be. Then draw another circle about an inch larger. That’s your cutting line.

After you’ve cut the circle for the drum head, fold the skin in half. Using an awl, pierce two holes about an inch apart, about a half inch from the edge of the hide. Do the same on the opposite site. Then fold the hide in quarters and make another set of holes. Open up you hide. You should have four sets of holes about equidistant along the edge of your hide. Then inside each quarter make two more sets of holes, spaced evenly.

Reposition your hide on top of the gourd. Now you’re going to mark spots on the gourd that correspond to the holes in the hide. Once marked, drill the holes with about a 3/8″ bit. Clean the dust out of the gourd.

To cut the lacing you need, you can take another circular piece of hide and keep cutting a 3/8″ strip along the edge of the hide. Just keep going till you’ve cut a strip a little more than double the diameter of the opening you cut on the top of the gourd. That hide should also be well soaked.

Now you’re going to start lacing the hide and the gourd together. Make sure that the lacing is positioned on the outside of the skin when it’s going from one set of holes to another. Otherwise, you’re drum skin will look all fluted and funny looking. Once it’s all laced up, use a needle nose plier to held you gradually tighten the lacing around the drum. The skin should be pretty taut on the drum. Then let it dry thoroughly. Your drum should be ready to play. If the sound’s not right, try spraying with a little water, then blowing with a hair dryer. That should shrink up the skin so it bounces the sound the way it should.

Thanks to the gentleman at the NC Gourd Festival who gave me this advice.

[This message has been edited by Linda (edited 09-18-2001).]

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