The paint is red, black, and green.

The paint is red.

This well-finished hamatsa whistle depends for its decoration upon a single color change from the natural wood mouthpiece to dark brown or black painting over the remaining surface, and sensitive shifts from sharp to rounded corners of its square cross section. The three pieces of hardwood, perhaps yew, are fastened together with four tight bindings of commercial seine twine (one of which is missing), which themselves become a part of the decoration. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

The paint is white, red, and black.

The steel is double bladed.

Whistle (mudzis): Whistles, such as this two-tone one, are secretly blown in the Tseyka to signal the first approach of a Hamatsa dancer who is possessed by the Cannibal Spirit. Horns were used in the Tlasula, after the disappearance of the initiate dancer, to announce his or her return in the guise of a supernatural being.