Fig. 18.—Bone Flutes. Ancient Peruvian.
a. and b. Truxillo. c. Lima.
British Museum.
Again, at the public ceremonies which took place on the accession of a prince to the throne the new monarch addressed a prayer to the god, in which occurred the following allegorical expression:—"I am thy flute; reveal to me thy will; breathe into me thy breath like into a flute, as thou hast done to my predecessors on the throne. As thou hast opened their eyes, their ears, and their mouth to utter what is good, so likewise do to me. I resign myself entirely to thy guidance.” Similar sentences occur in the orations addressed to the monarch. In reading them one can hardly fail to be reminded of Hamlet’s reflections addressed to Guildenstern, when the servile courtier expresses his inability to “govern the ventages” of the pipe and to make the instrument “discourse most eloquent music,” which the prince bids him to do.
M. de Castelnau, in his “Expédition dans l’Amérique,” gives among the illustrations of objects discovered in ancient Peruvian tombs a flute made of a human bone. It has four finger holes at its upper surface and appears to have been blown into at one end. Two bone flutes ([Figs. 18b & c]), in appearance similar to the engraving given by M. de Castelnau, which have been disinterred at Truxillo, are deposited in the British Museum. They are about six inches in length, and each is provided with five finger holes. One of these has all the
holes at its upper side, and one of the holes is considerably smaller than the rest. The specimen which we illustrate ([Fig. 18a]) is ornamented with some simple designs in black.
The other has four holes at its upper side and one underneath, the latter being placed near to the end at which the instrument evidently was blown. In the aperture of this end some remains of a hardened paste, or resinous substance, are still preserved. This substance probably was inserted for the purpose of narrowing the end of the tube, in order to facilitate the producing of the sounds. The same contrivance is still resorted to in the construction of the bone flutes by some Indian tribes in Guiana. The bones of slain enemies appear to have been considered especially appropriate for such flutes. The Araucanians having killed a prisoner, made flutes of his bones, and danced and “thundered out their dreadful war songs, accompanied by the mournful sounds of these horrid instruments.” Alonso de Ovalle says of the Indians in Chili: “Their flutes, which they play upon in their dances, are made of the bones of the Spaniards and other enemies whom they have overcome in war. This they do by way of triumph and glory for their victory. They make them likewise of bones of animals; but the warriors dance only to the flutes made of their enemies.” The Mexicans and Peruvians obviously possessed a great variety of pipes and flutes, some of which are still in use among certain Indian tribes. Those which were found in the famous ruins at Palenque are deposited in the museum in Mexico. They are:—The cuyvi, a pipe on which only five tones were producible; the huayllaca, a sort of flageolet; the pincullu, a flute; and the chayna, which is described as “a flute whose lugubrious and melancholy tones filled the heart with indescribable sadness, and brought involuntary tears into the eyes.” It was perhaps a kind of oboe.
The Peruvians had the syrinx, which they called huayra-puhura. Some clue to the proper meaning of this name may perhaps be gathered from the word huayra, which signifies “air.” The huayra-puhura was made of cane, and also of stone. Sometimes an embroidery of needlework was attached to it as an ornament. One specimen which has been disinterred is adorned with twelve figures precisely resembling Maltese crosses. The cross is a figure which may readily be supposed to suggest itself very naturally; and it is therefore not so surprising, as it may appear at a first glance, that the American Indians used it not unfrequently in designs and sculptures before they came in contact with Christians.
The British Museum possesses a huayra-puhura consisting of fourteen reed pipes of a brownish colour, tied together in two rows by means of thread, so as to form a double set of seven reeds. Both sets are almost exactly of the same dimensions and are placed side by side. The shortest of these reeds measure three inches, and the longest six and a half. In one set they are open at the bottom, and in the other they are closed. Consequently octaves are produced. The reader is probably aware that the closing of a pipe at the end raises its pitch an octave. Thus, in our organ, the so-called stopped diapason, a set of closed pipes, requires tubes of only half the length of those which constitute the open diapason, although both these stops produce tones in the same pitch; the only difference between them being the quality of sound, which in the former is less bright than in the latter.
The tones yielded by the huayra-puhura in question are as follows: