The Drum People . . . . . . . . . Call 1-256-538-0246

Your Drum Maker

Keith Little Badger builds three styles of NATIVE HAND DRUMS 

Please scroll down this page to learn more about:

1. River-recovered Cedar hand drums
2. Cottonwood hand drums
3. Pine Plains style hand drums

On this page, we explain our philosophy of using rawhide laces rather than sinew or rope. 
We explain why we use cowhide, and how we have it processed specially for our Native drums.
We explain our lacing technique and its spiritual sigificance.

We welcome questions, so if we have not provided enough information to help you choose your personal hand drum, please call us at 256-538-0246.  We will play some drums for you and answer all your questions.

Cedar Hand Drums

When Keith builds a native hand drum, NO TREES DIE.  We refuse to build hand drums using the "cheese wheel" or mass-produced plywood "hoop."   Plywood was not invented in the time of our ancestors, so it is not a traditional Native American wood source.   Instead, Keith Little Badger uses River-recovered or recycled Cedar.  (Learn more about the spiritual significance of river-recovered cedar.)  Keith constructs each hand drum frame from 16 pieces of cedar sanded into a circle.  This is sometimes referred to as a "FRAME DRUM." 

Keith cuts rawhide laces from the same hide as the head.  He does not use string or imitation sinew.  This is extremely important: drums laced with nylon cord, rope or sinew will eventually result in a loose drum head because they will not expand and contract at the same rate as the rawhide head.  Different materials = different reactions to humidity and climate. 

We provide a FREE drum stick with every drum.  CLICK on the thumbnail photo of drum back at right to see detail of the lacing and back. 

• 14" diameter:   $130.00
• 16" diameter:   $160.00
• 18" diameter:   $190.00 

Cottonwood Hand Drum

We have a limited number of boards remaining from our special lightening-struck cottonwood tree that had no business being in Alabama.  Read more about that story here.  

Since we took the whole cottonwood tree, we have decided to use bull hide on the cottonwood frame.  Our bull hides provide a reliable sound and the cottonwood hull makes a lightweight native american style hand drum, perfect for women.

Once again, this will be a limited run.   When the cottonwood is gone, it's gone.  Call now to place your order.

               14" hand drum:  $160.00
               16" hand drum:  $190.00
               18" hand drum:  $210.00

All native drums come with a free drum stick.

Why no padded handle on our Native Drums?

We do not use a padded handle because Native Americans believe that the heartbeat of Mother Earth echoes through their native drums.  There are two important reasons why we don't use "mittins" on our hand drums:

1. First, padding interferes with the contact between you and your drum.  Of the thousands of Native Americans we have met at powwows, not a single one carried or played a drum with a padded handle.  It defeats the purpose of drumming as prayer. 
2. Second, padded handles restrict the sounds of your drum.  Our drums are famous as "scratch drums" used by Northern tribes.  You can use your thumb to stop the reverberation and create a unique drumbeat.  Drumming involves the whole hand, not just the drum beater or mallet.  Padded handles limit the voice of your drum.

WHY UNBLEACHED BULL HIDE?

Bleaching weakens rawhide, so we use only UNBLEACHED BULL (male cow) hide.  Why cow hide?  We have found that elk, goat, pig, or deer hides are extermely thin, and they will warp in even 5% humidity. They are also rubbery hides, which means they will stretch forever, so that your drum head will never be tight.   Cow hide holds up under all weather conditions, and can withstand the humidity of a sweat lodge.

Since we support horse rescue ranchs, we find it very difficult to use a majestic horse to put a head on our drums.  Cows are already a major food source.  Their rawhide will be wasted, so we choose to recycle a byproduct of an animal already killed for food.

We do not use Buffalo for spiritual reasons.  Buffalo have been on the species extinction list; cows have not.  We believe that it is wrong to kill Buffalo to make drums when fast food restaurants slaughter cows by the billions.  Haven't humans killed enough Buffalo?  If you need to honor the Buffalo, tie a tuft of buffalo hair on your drum, don't kill the animial.  For these reasons we believe the finest, most affordable sound comes from unbleached cow hide.  All of our hides are commercially tanned to ensure uniformity in thickness and quality. 

PROTECT AND TRANSPORT YOUR DRUM IN STYLE.

See our beautiful custom drum bags and drum sticks.

PAINTED DRUMS

Take a tour through our archives to view Cheryl's artowrk.  She is no longer painting, but we have found some talented Native American artists to paint Keith Little Badger's drums.