  About the Artwork
  
  
  The pair of Drumsticks are carved with images that address the differences between male and female. Many Native American cultures recognize the complementary and yet different social roles of men and women in community life. This mutual dependency extends to religious ritual, as acknowledged by the male and female faces carved in the drumsticks used for the most sacred episodes of the Delaware Big House ceremony.
  
  
  Title
  Male Drumstick
  
  
  Artwork Date
  between 1875 and 1900
  
  Artist
  ----------
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  ----------
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Native American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  Delaware
  
  
  Medium
  Carved wood with pigment
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 19 5/8 × 2 15/16 × 1 inches (49.8 × 7.5 × 2.5 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  Indigenous Americas
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, Dabco Frank American Indian Art Fund and Henry Ford II Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  1983.28.1
  
  
  Copyright
  Copyright Not Evaluated
