Three Wooden Drumsticks with Carved and Incised Grips. Used in Native American Church Meetings.

Ex. James Cooley Collection. 

Three slender wooden drumsticks, varying in color from warm reddish brown to deep chocolate brown, each with an elongated shaft, rounded end, and individually shaped grip. Their ornament is concentrated near the handles, leaving the greater part of each shaft smooth and undecorated.

The most extensively worked example incorporates successive passages of diamond-pattern crosshatching, divided by raised collars and narrow encircling grooves. A second carries a shorter crosshatched band above a comparatively plain grip. The darkest stick is more restrained, its gently swelling handle articulated by an oblique carved detail. These variations give the group a useful comparative character, showing different approaches to proportion, surface texture, and the transition between shaft and handle.

The drumstick belongs to the essential musical equipment of Native American Church worship. Sacred singing is accompanied by the water drum and gourd rattle, making the relationship between voice and percussion central to the ceremony. Within this setting, an otherwise modest wooden implement participates directly in a collective devotional practice.

Drumsticks also appear among the personal ceremonial possessions preserved in peyote boxes, alongside feather fans, rattles, and other carefully maintained objects. Documented assemblages demonstrate that these implements were retained as part of an individual participant’s equipment rather than understood merely as interchangeable musical accessories.