ABSTRACT
Sound instruments among the Flathead are neither very complex nor of great number. Of aboriginal manufacture are hand drums and war drums with the accompanying drumstick, whistles, rattles, flageolets, and deer and elk lures. No professional specialists in instrument-making are found among the Flathead. Lack of price structure is further explained by some instruments being freely borrowed and loaned, passing from hand to hand with considerable ease. Ownership of war drums is a more serious matter, since considerable time and resources may be spent on acquiring an instrument. One instrument maker assured the author with considerable pleasure that he would make a drum which would “last a lifetime”; the material chosen for the frame was the frame of an old radio speaker made of cast iron. The wood of the instrument, however, is bamboo, and the flageolet is covered with incised carvings which are definitely outside the American Indian sphere.
