Translation
My children, my children,
I am about to hum,
I am about to hum.
My children, my children.
Fig. 93—Hummer and bull-roarer.
The author of this song saw her children in the other world playing with the hätiku′tha, or hummer. On going home after awaking from her trance, she made the toy and carried it with her to the next dance and twirled it in the air while singing the song. The hätiku′tha, or hummer, is used by the boys of the prairie tribes as our boys use the “cut-water,” a circular tin disk, suspended on two strings passed through holes in the middle, and set in rapid revolution, so as to produce a humming sound, by alternately twisting the strings upon each other and allowing them to untwist again. One of these which I examined consists of a bone from a buffalo hoof, painted in different colors, with four buckskin strings tied around the middle and running out on each side and fastened at each end to a small peg, so as to be more firmly grasped by the fingers. It was carried in the dance in 1890 by an old Arapaho named Tall Bear, who had had it in his possession for twenty years. Another specimen, shown in [figure 93], a, now in possession of the National Museum, is similar in construction, but with only one string on each side.
A kindred toy—it can hardly be considered a musical instrument—is that known among the whites as the “bull-roarer.” It is found among most of the western tribes, as well as among our own children and primitive peoples all over the world. It is usually a simple flat piece of wood, about 6 inches long, sometimes notched on the edges and fancifully painted, attached to a sinew or buckskin string of convenient length. It is held in one hand, and when twirled rapidly in the air produces a sound not unlike the roaring of a bull or of distant thunder. With most tribes it is simply a child’s toy, but among the Hopi, according to Fewkes, and the Apache, according to Bourke, it has a sacred use to assist the prayers of the medicine-man in bringing on the storm clouds and the rain.