The Indians of America, especially those of North America, show a much higher mental development than is common in savage nations.
Fig. 1.—Indian Conjuror's Drum.
Fig. 2.—Indian Conjuror's Rattle.
Fig. 3. Indian Grain Rattle.
This is shown in many tribes by a communal system of government, loyalty to their Sachems, or chiefs, their skill in embroidering leather articles with dyed quills and grasses, and not least in their production of stringed musical instruments. Instruments of concussion and percussion, like drums and cymbals, and also wind instruments of shell or horn, and rude forms of bagpipes, are inventions of most savage races; but the production of even the most elementary form of stringed instrument is a distinct advance, showing an understanding, however faint, of the use of vibration in developing and strengthening an original note.
The Apache Indians have a small fiddle with one string, and the Yakutata of Alaska have also a form of violin. The Nachee Indians of the Mississippi regions have a sacred instrument of great antiquity. It is of wood, about five feet high by one foot wide, and is held between the feet, resting alongside the chin of the performer. The strings are made of the sinews of a large buffalo, and it is played by a bow, held by two men, one at each end. Probably we might be inclined to think it more noisy than musical, but happily in music, as in most other things, tastes differ.
In Central Africa an instrument is made of the shell of the armadillo, or of the turtle, having strings stretched across it. It is suggestive of the primitive lyres of antiquity, in which a tortoise-shell was used as a sounding-board.