The Choctaw Drum

As one of the oldest traditional instruments, the Choctaw drum is used primarily at stickball games, but may also signal the opening to a dance performance by the Choctaw social dancers. It is modeled after military snare drums used by British and American troops in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the design has changed very little in the last 200 years.

The body of the drum is wood or sometimes metal. The wood used for this is usually sourwood, black gum or tupelo gum. These trees are often hollow by the time they reach a suitable size for drums. When a likely tree is found, a section of approximately the size of the finished drum is cut from the trunk.

The interior of the drum blank is cut to the desired size first, using chisels. Then the outside of the drum body is shaped using chisels and a draw knife. When the desired thickness for the wall of the drum body is reached (approximately ½ inch), the drum body is set aside to allow the wood to dry. Often at this stage the drum body will warp or split and will have to be discarded. If it survives the drying process, then the rims, head and rope laces are put on the new drum.

The rims of the drum are made of strips of hickory which are bent into a hoop, that will just fit around the drum body. A deer rawhide whose edges are wrapped around a second hickory hoop, which is held tight by the rim of the drum, forms the head of the drum. The rope laced around the sides of the drum is threaded through holes along the rim and is used to keep the head of the drum tight for playing. The final touch in making a drum is to attach the snares, which are formed using small pieces of lead attached to a string, which is fitted along the bottom of the drum. This gives the Choctaw drum its distinctive sound.