Video
Jr Ranger Series: Design Your Own American Indian Rattle
Transcript
Hello everyone. My name is Chris Young, and I'm one of the park rangers here at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. You may wonder why we're out here inside Point Park, at the very tip of Lookout Mountain. Well, it's really about what's kind of behind us - Moccasin Bend National Archeological District, and, I guess to a certain extent, Lookout Mountain itself. Because today is our last installment of the Junior Ranger Series that we've been conducting all year, and typically you've been with Ranger Emily, but I'm going to be conducting the last program here about American Indian music and how that played a role in Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park as well as us conducting some hands-on craft activities today in which we're going to create our own American Indian rattle. So, why is music so important? I bet most of us, when we get into our cars and drive from point A to point B, we turn the radio on or our Bluetooth is hooked up to our radio so that we can listen to our favorite playlists. Music is a part of our society. It's really a part of who we are, and music spans the whole spectrum of time.
On Moccasin Bend, just below us on the Tennessee River, on that big peninsula back there, that is where multiple generations of American Indians lived, from the Archaic Period, 10 to 12,000 years, all the way up until Cherokee Removal, and music played an instrumental role in the Cherokee Nation, as well as all the American Indian nations and tribes throughout the United States, or what would become the United States. Primarily, where we are right now, in Point Park, was the Cherokee Nation up until 1838, also. Music plays an important role in daily life, especially ceremonies, like the Green Corn Ceremony. There are different ceremonial music associations and dances that the Cherokee and other American Indian tribes will play and will conduct as certain seasons are coming about. I want us to watch a quick video looking at some of the dances and music that are portrayed by the Cherokee Nation.
[American Indian music]
Welcome back. Hopefully, we learned a little bit about seeing and visualizing some of those dances. You really don't want me to dance on camera, or even off camera, but what I want us to do is, I want us to look now at creating a rattle. So, rattles were very important pieces of those ceremonial processes in the Cherokee Nation and other nations. And, how do we construct a rattle back then? A lot of rattles that you find historically, or prehistorically even, are made from turtle shells and one of the most prolific turtles that we have in this area is the box turtle, and so, those box turtle shells would have been sealed; there would have been stones, or beans, or other items placed inside that turtle shell, and you might have a handle on it, or you might be able to strap it around your leg or your arm, or something and be able to rattle that to create some sort of noise and music during these ceremonial dances. So, that's what we're going to do today, is we're going to create a rattle that we can use, or that we can mimic, that the Cherokee and their ancestors may have used here on Lookout Mountain or down on Moccasin Bend, just across the Tennessee River. So what you're going to need, and unfortunately, I can't give these to you through the camera, but these are some things that you're going to need, and I'll have a list of them just underneath the video on our website. So, if you go to our webpage, the park web page (www.nps.gov/chch), and you find this video in our "Multimedia Section," there will be a list of items that you need, or suggested items that you need, you can be as creative as you want to, but I'm going to put the suggested items that I have so that you can create this rattle. So first off, we're going to look at getting two bowls. We'll look at two paper bowls, here, these are brown bowls, and we're gonna put them together. This will be kind of our essence of our rattle, and we can design them. It looks kind of like a turtle shell. So, you may want to take some time and design your turtle shell, color your turtle shell in, and then, what I would suggest doing, is taking a stapler and stapling along the outside edges so that these two bowls are together; now they're one bowl, and what we'll do is, we won't staple all the way around, we'll leave an opening so you can pour in beans. So, you'll want to find some beans. I purchased some black beans today. Just open those up, pour those down into the bowl that you have, that little opening there, pour these beans down in there, and then be sure to staple that closed so that you have a nice rattle, and you may also want to to try and play around with putting in a depressor stick, or some other kind of stick, in there. You could glue it in, you could try to staple it in, so that you have some sort of handle on your rattle. I made one up earlier. This is my rattle. You can tell that it looks kind of, I tried to shape it like a turtle shell. So, you have this turtle shell kind of looking bowl, and then I stapled it, and instead of putting the stick in, I actually just left it like this and put those beans in there. So, now I have a rattle. So, this is an easy way to make an American Indian rattle for you. Hopefully, you've enjoyed this program and if you've not been able to join us in person for this program, hopefully, you'll be able to make this easily at home and then send those completed photos to us, to chch_education@nps.gov or share it with us on our Facebook Page (@chickamauganps), and we'll be sure to take a look at those, and with this being the last program, we'll be sure to get out those Junior Ranger special items for you for being with us all year and conducting multiple Junior Ranger programs during this Junior Ranger Series. Take care everyone, bye-bye.
Description
In this final Jr. Ranger Series program, potential Jr. Rangers will learn how important music was to American Indians as part of ceremonies and other functions and will be asked to create their very own American Indian Rattle.
Items Needed: 2 bowls, preferably paper 1 stapler 1 stick (this can be skipped if you don't want a handle) 1 bag of dry beans
Duration
10 minutes, 2 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
11/02/2021
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