Rainstick

A rainstick is a long, hollow tube which is filled with small baubles such as beads or beans and has small pins or thorns arranged helically on its inside surface. In this sound the stick is upended slowly at a 45 degree angle, and the beads fall to the other end of the tube one by one and then all together, making a sound reminiscent of a rainstorm as they bounce off the pins. The rainstick is generally considered to have been invented in Chile, and was played in the belief that it could bring about rainstorms. Rainsticks are usually made from any of several species of cactus.