Eight-year-old Austin couldn’t find the words right away, but sitting in the outdoor classroom at Centennial Field, they eventually came to him.
He was trying to explain why it’s so important to smudge a traditional indigenous hand drum like the one he and his Grade 3 and 4 classmates at Jasper Elementary School made themselves and had blessed by an elder on May 30.
He leans in and consults Ashton, nine, then remembers on his own.
“If you play it without smudging, you’ll send bad stuff out into the world,” he proclaims.
Maybe the most noteworthy thing of the drum gathering described was the noise.
There was absolutely none.
In its place a respectful silence - not near silence, not pretty silent for nine-year-olds, silence - proof of the learning that took place before the kids set about creating their own connection to the heartbeat of Mother Earth.
Elder Dorothy Coutereille who hails from Joussard and now lives in Hinton, sat at a bench, a perfectly composed lineup of students with their drums ready for her to smudge and say a prayer over each of them.
Once their drums are blessed, they are granted a drumstick to play it with, likewise made of natural materials in a traditional fashion.
A pair of bluebirds doing their spring thing fly through the pine branches overhead and grab the attention of the students whose drums have been blessed. The point and sigh with joy, but still not a rimshot, not a thumbed strum of one of the strings holding the drum hide to the frame.
It’s because the students have been instructed in the rules of the drum, which, for starters, dictate who and when can play it, and how it should be treated when not in use, including oiling it to prevent cracking, storing it in a safe place, one that’s also honoured, ideally, and using a natural material like a soft leather to protect it.
The students get to take them home at the end of the school year.
Another rule is to get to know your drum, which the students get to take home at the end of the school year. The kids held the drums up to the sunlight to get a better look at the features and flaws in the hide that helped make theirs unique.
Ashton already knew his.
“I like the dots that connect to each other,” he’d pointed out earlier.
Grade 3 and 4 Jasper Elementary School students made traditional Indigenous hand drums and learned how to properly treat them May 30. C Gilbert photo.
