In drumming, the vessel is given an occasional shake to wet the head with the contained water, and the left thumb is used to test the tone and tighten the head: sometimes too the head is sucked or blown upon, so that the water is forced to ooze through the skin. The Ponca, however, do not permit the drum head to be touched—“peyote makes the sound, not the hand,”[63] they say—and hence make a handle of the lacing-rope twisted upon itself. Old Man Sack (Caddo) also forbade blowing on the drum, “even when it cups up and sounds like a tin can,” a Kiowa peyote-boy said; in the stricter Caddo moons no water is drunk until the drum has made four rounds, with the result that some of their meetings consequently last well into the forenoon of the next day—a genuine ordeal according to informants. Among the Iowa, and possibly also in some Caddo Delaware “Big Moons” the drum chief accompanies the drum around the circle, drumming for each singer. The Jesse Clay style of drumming among the Winnebago, described by Densmore, is common among the southern tribes: a rapid unaccented beating before the beginning of the singing, gradually slackening to match the speed of the voice. Another mannerism may be noted at the end of each song, when the rattle is shaken unrhythmically as fast as possible during the last few bars of the song, then suddenly stopped with the last drum beat.[64] The water drum is typically Southeastern in distribution, but its presence in the Plains peyote cult must be accounted another Southwestern feature, inasmuch as it was standardized and diffused over the Plains before Southeastern groups in Oklahoma received peyote and hence could have introduced the trait into it.[65] _Feathers._ Feathers are important in peyote symbolism. In the original Comanche rite only the leader brought in a medicine fan with him; “now many young men bring them who have no special business to.” Skinner wrote that eagle feathers were “badges of the society” among peyote-using Iowa; women were never allowed to use eagle feathers in meetings, however. Younger Oto men carry modern ribbed folding-fans, older ones commonly an entire wing. The individual fans of the Northern Cheyenne, as elsewhere, are not produced until the full effects of the peyote come on, some time after midnight. The eagle feather fans of the Winnebago represent the wings of birds mentioned in Revelations, while the Kickapoo state that the twelve feathers of the eagle fan symbolize the twelve months of the year; twelve is a common Delaware ritual number also.[66]