Making a small personal drum

Today Jean and I went to a drum making workshop, taught by Mi'kmaq elder Carolyn Landry in Kentville NS.
We each made our own personal drum.  This is how the day went.
We were wondering how we would be able to pull this off in our given 1 and 1/2 hour workshop.
The secret?  That wood ring is pre made and the soaking deer hide already cut to size and punched.  We are essentially putting together a kit.  It is then a very do-able project under our instructor supervision.  The hide and the stringing lanyards are both deer hide.  The lanyards are cut in a circle to make really long strings.

The hardest part is centering, and keeping it centered, our hide.

Mine is up front, Jean to my right.

I got a strip cut (a tad short, yikes) and strung around my hide.

NO tape measure, we just guesstimated the length with our eyeballs :-)

Once tied loosely around, making sure the hide is still centered.

The remainder of the long lanyard is tied to the strip that was weaved around,

 then starting in the top quadrant, threaded Left then Right, all the way around.

there are 12 "pockets" to go around

It is important at this stage to leave the stringing not too tight

 because it will tighten itself as it dry

Then starting with three strings together wrap around at least 5 times, 

and repeat for the next bunch of 3.  The pockets all around are tucked in.

You end up with  a cross in the middle which is where you hold the drum by.

Not bad for my first attempt but I am slightly off center

Our four almost finished drums

Jean finishing her

Belle with her drum.

Everyone was quite happy how our drums all turned out

Later I will trim the ends by the knots

Our final product, complete with drum stick

We then went outside to give our blessing to the animals that provided us with the hide (Hunted)
and the trees that provide the wood pieces, with an offering of tobacco.
Smudging, ourselves and the drums were next with sage.

Our instructor Carolyn starting the sage on fire

My three fellows apprentices awaiting the smudging

Jean being smudged 

Then her drum was also

And then it was my turn

including my own personal drum

A very pleasant experience, we had a great bunch of people.
That was a very interesting project, learned a lot.  Our drums are now resting at home were they will undergo drying for at least 1 week before being ready to play.
Next I must learn her language (Mi'kmaq), well at least the words to the honor songs and learn to play my personal drum.


Bob, still young enough to learn new things :-)