I’ve just finished painting this new native style frame drum with a spruce wood hoop and blacktail deer hide. The hoop is 12" in
diameter but the voice is deep and strong.
A perfect drum to play outside because the smaller drum head size will
not easily slacken in humidity or warp in heat.
This drum was first called "rain" because spirits always
come in the rain, and our drought here in British Columbia was ended (briefly) with
two days of rain just before I painted this great cat touching a pool of
rainwater. It has been so dry
and the fire danger extreme, and I kept wondering, "What do the animals
do? How do they find water to
survive?"
The painting itself was inspired in the brief moment I drew
a faint black line across the light area in the drum head which at first I
thought was entirely the cat’s paw.
Suddenly the lower half of the shape became a reflection, and the faint
squiggles in the deer skin’s surface resolved themselves into lines in rock and
edges formed by water.
The cedar ring is fitted with an interlacement pattern of
the 7-pointed Mystic Star, which is considered effective protection against
evil influences and rival magicians.
The star design is repeated twice, with the outer pattern
wrapped in a decorative hitching of sailor’s knotwork made of doeskin. In the
Tarot, 14 is the number of Temperance—the quality of being moderate; to
restrain from extremes.
Perhaps the life-saving rain came in that world as well as
this world, and the spirit of cougar is showing me that for this moment, the
extreme has been moderated and all is well.
