Bone flutes and whistles of New York |
The following is a reprint from the World Flutes Forum of the International Native American Flute Association newsletter. Volume 4, 2000. |
After flutin’ for some number of years now, it’s always wonderful to play flutes made by a variety of makers. Some are soft while others are loud and demanding to be heard.
If one is intuitive enough, one might be able to learn so many things about the person behind the flute. This is what I was hoping to do during a visit to the
Rochester Museum and Science Center.
http://www.rmsc.org/. What’s at the center? Plenty! If you have a chance to visit, go by all means. It houses the discoveries
of archaeologist, Dr. William Ritchie. His lives work was uncovering and studying the ancient Indian cultures. The fact is a valuable chunk of history has been preserved.
On my way to the Museum I saw many new developments and acres of bulldozed land and thought about the many remains that are destroyed every year due to “progress”. Ritchie’s
respectful handling and treatment of these artifacts helps us reconstruct the lifestyles of those who inhabited New York from contact to 8,000 years ago. |
Fig.1. A. is an elderberry reproduction of the Frontenac Island flute. I needed to think subjectively during construction. It seems that this whistle survived because the soil it was buried in was slightly alkaline. Bone artifacts deteriorate rapidly in acid soils. Any deterioration would be likely in thinner walled areas or the spongy, more porous sections at the ends of bird bones. The whistles at the museum ranged in quality, from porous and worn, to a porcelain white as fresh as yesterday. If one corrects for wear, the reproductions should have slightly smaller embouchure holes and slightly longer barrels. |
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The embouchure holes on worn whistles seem a bit large. The resulting sound would most likely be airy and less likely to play overtones. Not all of the whistles betrayed the technologic approach to constructing the air ducts. Fig.1 whistles have embouchure holes with a U shaped cutting edge, which suggest airflow from the opposite direction. The technique of cutting a plug with the top shaved to form a duct against the inside wall of the bone, is highly suggested. |
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They’re where several variations of embouchure holes, (fig.2) some very cleverly done, very precise, deliberate, and not unlike whistles of other cultures. The cutting, or splitting edge on almost all the whistles was worked to a sharpened edge. Some experimenting showed that wooden plugs invariably cracked bird bones when exposed to excess moisture. Bee’s wax, then and now, was readily available and easier to mold and tweak into a fine voice. I did inquire as to whether or not any residues or materials inside the whistles had been saved for study. The reply was, “not to the museum’s knowledge”. Therein lies the problem of early archaeology. No matter how careful Ritchie worked, in removing these whistles and cleaning them up, he may have inadvertently destroyed some clues to Lamokan technology. |
There is another embouchure type common to this collection of whistles. Figure 4 illustrates a whistle with an elongated oval hole, sometimes in the center or off to one side at various distances. There’s two common ways these whistles give voice. The use of a “hump” of wax to create a wind way and cover the half towards your mouth with birch bark and a leather tie, making this a whistle. This is the classic Lakota Eagle bone approach. A very fine Burmese flautist and friend showed me three cane flutes he received from an aging master. Each whistle was in a different key and utilized this very same oval and bee’s wax duct method. For your information, I could not distinguish the Burmese tuning from the Native American southern style. I would strongly recommend getting your hands on some traditional Burmese flute music. The slurs and bends are so gracefully executed. Listen and incorporate them into your bag o’ tricks. |
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A second technique would be to blow over the oval much like a transverse or classical flute. Technically these instruments would be true flutes. My reproductions can give voice either way. A flute gifted to me a while back inspired one argument for this technique. It was found at the Caroga site near Ephratah, N.Y. The stratum was dated at about 1500 AD. Of course it may have been much older, possibly part of a medicine bundle and in the family for hundreds of years. It appears to be a large wing bone about ¼” in diameter and three inches long. The embouchure hole is a bit off center and square. Only one side of the square is sharpened (figure 3). I believe this gives away the technique. One can produce four distinct pitches by covering either end. Yes, there are African flutes that are played this way as well. |
A bit about the tools used. Figure 5 is a detail of a flint drill or “gimlet”. I knapped this as close to the Lamokan examples as I could. It is hafted onto a piece of Osage orange wood with sinew. It works fine on bird bone. The Eskimo bow drill shown in figure 6 is perfect for drilling harder and thicker deer bones. That’s a ¼” steel spade bit mounted in the drill. Also shown are a couple of Onondaga flint and chalcedony scrapers and micro flakes that are fine for shaping the embouchure hole. A coping saw with a fine-toothed blade is sufficient for cutting off the ends. A few small rasps round out the compliment of tools necessary to make a simple bone whistle. For finishing, a wad of saw grass or steel wool to polish with. Use some bee’s wax and walnut oil to bring out the shine. |
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Power tools are a bit aggressive, use them at slow speed and don’t horse ‘em. There’s no need to describe the preparation of the “raw” bone. I have included a fine reference that’ll
cover this subject. |
That is, each continent has its indigenous birds of prey; cranes or heron type birds, and pheasant or turkey types. Combine this with the fact that we five fingered have ten and you need two or three to hold the instrument, thus freeing up at least seven to play with. These seven can stretch only so far apart. This whittles finger hole positioning down a bit, and even more severely on three and four holed whistles. This may explain why I can use a five-holed minor pentatonic Native American flute to play old Lemko (southern Poland) or Chuvash (Volga Russian) tunes. It may explain an instance when I played what I thought was a totally original melody only to have it pointed out that it was very near to a Mandan love song. Many flute enthusiasts have related similar experiences. |
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The thin walled bird bone is not forgiving when it comes to finger hole placement. That is, when the hole is drilled your committed. You can make the hole larger to raise the pitch a bit, but it is not thick enough to “tweak” by undercutting. Besides, tweaking implies the note is not right and we must force it to conform. These whistles leave one with the impression that the makers made the holes and trusted their placement. It would be fair and accurate to say that no two flutes or whistles were the same. Before the idea of scale temperament made it’s way across the Atlantic, tuning was most likely of a personal nature, free of restraints. I would not rule out using finger width for measuring the space between holes. Most of the multi-holed instruments imply very small fingers indeed. Other means relative to spiritual matters, even instruction through vision or dreams may have entered into the formula. |
This writing has been an outlet for my personal joy of discovery. It was meant to be informative and in no way political. I have been urged to speak of how the two elders felt that day at the museum.
I wish not to betray their medicine out of profound respect. But I can tell you feelings were expressed deeply in the presence of five thousand year old Eagle bone whistles. Repatriation is another
subject I was requested to discuss. This is an excerpt of correspondence I’ve received. “While the
Oneida Indian nation builds it’s future at lightning speed, Bear Clan leader
Brian Patterson rebuilds the
nation’s past one day at a time…In March, The Rochester Museum
and Science Center returned the remains of 25 Oneida Indian people who had been buried in five Madison county sites, known to be
Oneida
villages in the 1600s. The museum also returned 45 funerary objects… The
Oneida people were pleased and honored to have the remains returned,”
Patterson said. “The bones of my people have graced this
land since time immemorial and to be able to right a great wrong is a great responsibility.” Enough said.
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