Drumstick, to go with drum 2995/1. Drumstick has a wooden handle that is squared at base, rounding and tapering toward its head. The head is an oblong shape covered with brown velvet, glued to the handle, and tied with white yarn.

Wooden drumstick with a heavily beaded handle, with a white fur tip. The shaft is decorated with tightly packed rows of small clear plastic beads, with the base of the handle covered in rawhide, wrapped with sinew. The top half of the fur tip has been darkened with black ink. There is a circular metal loop screwed into the end of the handle.

FROM CARD: "A WOODEN DRUM STICK."Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/15 , retrieved 12-17-2019: This drum stick is of the type that was and still is most common in the Central and Eastern Arctic. It is fashioned from single piece of wood, rounded at the end used for striking the drum and squared where it was grasped in the hand. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/66: Drums made from skins of newborn caribou stretched over wood hoops and struck with a drumstick are used to accompany singing and dancing. Drumsticks used in the Western Arctic normally are long wands made from wood and are used by striking the hoop and skin simultaneously. Drumsticks used in the Central and Eastern Arctic are usually shorter and heavier, and are used by striking the hoop only.

Ruth Demmert, Alan Zuboff, and Linda Wynne made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24. The design on this drum is not Tlingit and the elders commented they had not seen anything like it before. The handle and design of this object is unusual in comparison to similar Tlingit made objects.

FROM CARD: "THE SHELL IS A BENT HOOP, ITS ENDS SCARFED AND STITCHED TOGETHER WITH A TWISTED THONG, ONE HEAD OF RAWHIDE STRETCHED OVER THE HOOP AND HELD BY WOODEN PEGS DRIVEN IN BACK EDGE OF HOOP. FOUR LEGS OR EARS ARE FORMED ON EDGES OF SKIN AND TWO LINES OF TWISTED THONGS ARE LINES CROSS IN THE MIDDLE, THUS FORMING A HANDLE."This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. Drum and drumstick on loan.Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://www.alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=521, retrieved 4-24-2012: Drum, Tsimshian. Shamans played skin drums during healing rituals, while performers at potlatches and secret society ceremonies more often used wooden box drums. This instrument is a bent wooden hoop covered by thin deer hide, with crossed rawhide holding-straps in back. The drum stick depicts a killer whale in human form, a tall dorsal fin projecting from its head.

In the Spirit of the Ancestors-The wolf is one of the sacred animals that our ancestors cherished and imitated in our traditional dance forms. - Manuel Salazar