July 2024 Artifact of the Month (SJ-2024-1-1) The Sheldon Jackson Museum July artifact of the month is a tambourine-style Tlingit drum, or gaaw, and beater (SJ-2024-1-1A, SJ-2024-1-1B).
A man in Florida donated the drum in 2023. According to the donor, the drum was previously owned by a young teacher in Sitka named Florence Russell, who acquired it around the time of World War I. Russell passed the drum on to her second daughter, Edith Gillespie, at the time of her death. Gillespie in turn bequeathed the drum to the donor when she died in 2021. Unfortunately, we have no documentation of how Ms. Russell acquired the drum. The maker of the drum is also unknown, but two other drums with similar designs, one at the Sheldon Jackson Museum and the other at the Alaska State Museum, suggest who might have made it.
The drum is made of buckskin stretched over a wooden bentwood frame and measures 12 7/8” x 12 3/4". The head is lashed and tacked on the frame by thirty-six small brass (?) nails and strips of hide. Strips of hide lashing on the back form a handle in the shape of an “x.” The front of the drum is painted in a red, blue-green, and black formline design. Although we don't know the maker's intended meaning and symbolism, the design features animal imagery. The central figure, with its long snout, teeth, and paws, appears to be a wolf flanked on each side by smaller designs incorporating voids and split u forms. A thin black border runs around the exterior edge, with another face at the bottom, possibly a sculpin.
The central figure is very similar to drums SJ-I-A-544 and SJ-I-A-790 at the Sheldon Jackson Museum, and 2010-14-1 at the Alaska State Museum. The intermediary designs on the left and right sides of the central figure are very similar to drum SJ-I-A-544. SJ-I-A-544 was made by David Konketah, who gifted it to Robert DeArmond.
SJ-2024-1-1 (left) and SJ-I-A-790 (right) Maria Williams writes about 2010-14-1 in her article “The Wolf and Man/Bear: Public and Personal Symbols in a Tlingit Drum,” published in the Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology. She states that Amos Wallace, a well-known Tlingit artist, told her it may have been made by Frank James of Sitka or his son, Edward James. Both men were active drum makers in the 1930s and 40s and made old-style drums. Wallace identified the figure at the bottom of the drum as a sculpin. Williams also spoke with Tlingit elder Austin Hammond and Norman Jackson, a well-known carver from Kake, about the central design. They felt there was a human bear figure represented, especially in the paws, and thought it was likely related to the maker’s personal vision or a supernatural experience, such as with a guardian spirit. Jackson conceded that because the imagery had personal meaning, it would be difficult to know the exact details.
Two styles of drums are prominent among the Tlingit. The tambourine-style drum or gaaw, is the most common. Tambourine drums generally measure around two to two and a half feet in diameter and are made with the hard, tanned skin of a mountain goat, deer, or seal stretched over a circular frame. Frames are often made of poplar or maple, steamed, softened, and bent into shape. Strips of skin or cord are stretched across the back to allow for a handle. Short sticks called strikers are used to beat the drum. Strikers are often made of Devil’s Club, with a padded end wrapped in hide or string.
The second kind of drum, a kóok gaaw or box drum, is made of red cedar formed into a high narrow box open at one end. Sides are made of a single plank with corners cut. The plank is steamed and then bent into shape and sewed with spruce root at the fourth corner. The bottom is sewed or pegged to the side. Loops of hide are attached at the top of each end to allow the drum to be handled or hung from roof beams, usually in a lineage house. The sides of a box drum are usually painted in animal designs that represent the clan or house crest. The drum is named according to the figure portrayed. Tones and volume are controlled and changed by hitting the inside with the fist or fingers. The box drum has traditionally been used at potlatches and is still used during funerals and at memorial ku.éex’ ceremonies.
Music, dance, and song have been used by Tlingit to communicate emotion, history, family traditions, origin and migration stories, and spiritual beliefs for thousands of years. French explorer Jean-François de la Pérouse described hearing the Tlingit of Lituya Bay sing in a chorus of impressive, “very exact” voices in 1799. American anthropologist Lieutenant George Thornton Emmons noted the importance of music among the Tlingit in his travels in Alaska during the 1890s. Today, Tlingit songs are passed from one generation of clan members to the next. Songs are still sung at social gatherings and ceremonies. Contemporary Native musicians create and perform in a variety of genres ranging from hip hop to folk and jazz, sometimes combining traditional Alaska Native music with contemporary styles.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum cares for twenty-seven drums. The majority are Inupiaq. Nine are catalogued as Tlingit. You can see many drums, rattles, fiddles, and other musical instruments at the Sheldon Jackson Museum. The Sheldon Jackson Museum is currently open Monday-Saturday, 9 am - 4 pm and Sunday, 1 - 4:30 pm, closed holidays. General admission is $9, $8 for seniors, and free for ages 18 and under and active military and their families.
Emmons, George Thornton. The Tlingit Indians. Edited by Frederica de Laguna, American Museum of Natural History, 1991.
Williams, Maria. “The Wolf and Man/Bear: Public and Personal Symbols in a Tlingit Drum.” Pacific Journal of Ethnomusicology, Volume 7, 1995, pp. 79-92.
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