them is a serious matter, even the rejected fragments being disposed of in some safe place with a benediction: “Thus will it be beautiful. Thus walk in beauty, my grandchild.” “In none of the ancient Navajo rites is a regular drum or tom-tom employed,” says Matthews. “The inverted basket serves the purpose of one.” “The musical instruments,” says Bandelier, “which, while still in use in Mexico, are known to antedate the Conquest, are but three in number, one of which is already falling into oblivion. It is the _tozacatl_ (sounding-cane), described to me as a long cane, bent round like an Alpine horn. I never saw one, but its sound is said to be a sonorous bellowing. The other is the _chirimia_. It is made of dark brown wood, called _tepehuaje_, brought to Cholula from Matamoras-Yzucar, or near Atlixco. Its length is 0.46 metre (about 18 inches) and its width at the mouth is 0.06 metre (about 3 inches). It has eleven holes irregularly arranged, and the mouthpiece is a thin plate of horn on a stem of brass. The noise produced by this instrument is a fit accompaniment to the shrill Indian voices, being horrible beyond all description.... The big drum, the _tlapan-huehuetl_, was formerly made out of the trunk of a tree properly hollowed, over which, at one end, a deerskin or some other dried hide was stretched. All the older authors make more or less mention of this instrument, but more particularly Bernal Diez de Castillo, who says, when describing the upper platform of the principal mounds of worship of Mexico: ‘And there they had an exceedingly large drum, which, when beaten, gave a sound as if from the infernal regions, which was heard at more than two leagues off, and they said that the skin was that of large snakes.’”[283] The _teponaztli_ was a wooden instrument with two tongues that were beaten with a stick. Conch shells were also used as musical instruments. Some of these were of very great size. [Illustration: DRUM OF TERRA COTTA, CHIRIQUI] The Eskimo drum is like a tambourine, a skin stretched over a hoop. Some of the Chiriqui whistles were shaped like a top, while others were straight with finger holes. These various types were distributed over the whole area of the continent, the drum and the rattle always predominating.