NATIVE INDIAN GOURD RATTLES

Traditional gourd rattles used by the aboriginal Kumeyaay California Indians of North America, the Indigenous peoples of Southern California, San Diego County, northern Baja California, Mexico, are typically played during traditional Native American singing dancing, the bird songs bird dances of the Yuman Indians, including religious and spiritual ceremonies.

Above picture: Gourd rattle construction by: (L-R) Famous indigenous ethnographic artist Nick Wilson COCOPAH, an expert authority on how to make genuine Native California-style rattles, Frank Escalante QUECHAN, Alonso Pesado COCOPAH, Nick Wilson CUCAPA, Nick Wilson COCOPAH, Daleane Adams KUMEYAAY gourd artist (baby rattle), Sarah, Nick Wilson CUCAPA, Eric Nicolas Kingery KUMEYAAY.

NATIVE RATTLES Making Constructing:

Native American rattles, aboriginal musical instruments, are typically constructed of natural gourds, condensed milk cans and evaporated milk cans, desert willow handles, palm seeds to make rattle sounds, agave cord, willow and mole fat handles.

Authentic deer-hoof rattles (right above photo) are handmade with twisted agave fiber cord handles and real California deerhoofs, sometimes called deer-toe rattles. Deer-hoof musical and ceremonial rattles are generally played only during Native American funerals and wakes and their dried animal hoofs make a very distinctive sound when shaken.

Another type of California Indian rattle is a turtle-shell rattle; it's constructed by sticking a wooden handle through a tortoiseshell, inserting palm seeds and sealing off the openings.

The oldest known museum relics of ancient North American rattles are indigenous clay rattles, likely because the clay survived the ages whereas the other organic natural materials deteriorated over time and were lost.

SAM BROWN www.kumeyaay.org outlines instructions with photos about how to make a Kumeyaay Indian gourd rattle (in Kumeyaay language Same, a Native speaker, calles the Kumeyaay rattle "HalMa".

INDIAN RATTLES History in Southern CA:

ALSO, please see americanindiansource.com feature, including audio recordings of Kumeyaay bird singer Ron Christman performing live, and the Ipai-Tipai published article by Ron Christman Traditional Origins of Southern California Bird Songs.

Movies, Audio, Video, Clips, Professional Pictures:

Kumeyaay and California Indian Bird Singers Native American Singers Photos Pictures MOVIE see listen to and hear this large group of Yuman singers playing gourdrattles on audio video clip, and performing cultural social dances.

OVER 100 PROFESSIONAL PICTURES of Sycuan's 2005 Traditional Gathering featuring Yuman bird singing and playing GOURD RATTLES of Native California music, and Yuman bird dancers from across Southern California, southwestern Arizona, northern Baja California, Mexico, may include the Diegueno Diegueño Kumeyaay music Kumiai, Mohave, Quechan, Cocopah Cucapa, Cahuilla, Pai Pai Paipai, Ipai Tipai, Hualapai, Kiliwa, Havasupai, Maricopa, Yavapai, and Luiseño Luiseno aboriginal Indians of North America.

INDIGENOUS SINGERS San Jose de la Zorra, 2006 (with unique tribal rattles, AUDIO sound recordings).

Please see this festival MOVIE documentary for an aboriginal-style short elderberry flute song musical video introduction of a southern Kumeyaay Indian village documentary, including live documentary film clips featuring Kumiai cultural singing and dancing to traditional gourd rattle music.

OLD ANTIQUE hand painted museum Kumeyaay gourd rattle art by Isabel Thing, Kumeyaay.

Old vintage antique rare authentic Diegueño flutes of Southern California Indians, with Kumeyaay elderberry flute audio recording played in aboriginal Pre-Contact scales.

CALIFORNIA INDIAN BOWS & ARROWS features deep field and museum research, photography and captions as published in SURVIVAL SKILLS OF NATIVE CALIFORNIA, by Paul D. Campbell. Paul's book features living Native American California Indigenous people of the greater San Diego area, and details their traditional hunting, weapons and aboriginal California Indian survival methods.

INDIGENOUS CALIFORNIA INDIAN WEAPONRY, Native American weaponry, pictures old and modern traditional arts and crafts, including Native California Indian war clubs, Southern California Indigenous primitive weaponry, Cocopah Cucapa Indians artifacts for an American Indian museum experience.

NATIVE AMERICAN ROCK ART SERIES ancient pictographs petroglyphs cave art pictures rock sculptures of the Yuman Indigenous peoples of California pictrographs. Professional fotos of Kumeyaay Kumiai rock paintings hundreds and thousands of years old in Southern California and northern Baja California, Mexico.

CALIFORNIA INDIAN ARTIFACTS of the Diegueño Kumeyaay artifacts Kumiai, and Cahuilla, Cupeño Cupeno, Gabrielino, Juaneño Juaneno, Luiseño Luiseno Native American tribes of Southern California and northern Mexico. Authentic relics ancient old antique Indian arrowheads, baskets, pots, paviut wands staffs, rabbit sticks.

KUMEYAAY MUSIC: www.singbird.com

Kumeyaay bird singer Sam Brown, Viejas band, has a website dedicated to Kumeyaay Music, Kumeyaay bird singing, including delightful bird singing stories and great anecdotes about his extended family and growing up on the Viejas reservation in the 1900s.

SHUMUP KO HUP Native American music store formerly in Old Town San Diego, California, offered California Indian GOURD RATTLES and music CDs for sale -- you can even listen to some audio CDs of gourd singers on their web site.