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The Whistles and Reed Instruments of the American Indians of the North-West Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

F. W. Galpin
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Extract

The Pacific seaboard which bounds the territory of British Columbia on its west side is marked by frequent inlets backed by high mountain ranges and fringed with numerous islands, whose rocky heights, crowned with spruce and cedar, testify to their having at one time formed part of the mainland itself. Scattered along this coast in a territory about a thousand miles long by one hundred and fifty miles wide and separated from the inhabitants of the interior by natural barriers of hill and forest are certain Indian tribes of a peculiar and distinct character. Not only are their complexions surprisingly light coloured, — in some instances almost as fair as those of Europeans and in no way due to recent intermixture with white races—but in customs and laws, in arts and handicrafts, they show themselves superior to all other existing Indian tribes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Musical Association , Volume 29 , 1902 , pp. 115 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1902

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References

∗ cf. Classification by J. W. Powell. American Bureau of Ethnology, Vol. VII., 1886, with map. Also F. Boas, Kwakiutl Indians, U.S Nat. Museum Report (1893), reprint 1897, p. 320.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Niblack: Indians of the North-West Coast, U. S. Nat. Museum Report, 1888, p. 331.Google Scholar

∗ The common Indian name for all these instruments, whether whistle or reed, is Sk-āM'na.Google Scholar

∗ Besides red cedar (Thuja gigantea), spruce (Picea Menziesii) and cypress (Chamæcyparis Nutkaensis) are used. The wood was originally worked with flint, bone, or jade knives, and rubbed down with shark's skin, Iron was introduced by the Russians about 150 years ago.Google Scholar

∗ This whistle may have been purposely overblown: when played thus it sounds a unison E flat above treble C.Google Scholar

† cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 445, Fig. 74. By mistake it is described as having four voices or notes instead of only two.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 445, Fig. 71.Google Scholar

† cf. Niblack: Indians of North-West Coast. Plate lxii., No. 330.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 445, Fig. 70.Google Scholar

† cf. Report Geological Survey of Canada, 1878–79, p. 140b.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 653.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Dawson Report, 1878–79, p. 149b; and Niblack, U. S. Nat. Museum Report, 1888, p. 329.Google Scholar

∗ There are two particularly curious and deceptive forms which have come under my notice. In one of them the twin reeds are inserted into the upper end of a wooden tube, and though the tops of the reeds are visible they are beyond the control of the lips. Outwardly their form is very similar to that of the reed instruments described and figured below under Section 3, Nos. 16, 16a. There is an old and perfect specimen in the British Museum with the reeds in position, but as the little reeds are easily lost, it may be that this form is often overlooked or mistaken. There can be little doubt but that all wooden tubes with both ends open should be referred to the present sub-section, the reeds in this case having been lost. The second curious and deceptive form is also shown in the British Museum collection, the outline somewhat resembling the form figured below under Section 3, No. 15a. The mouth-hole is also placed in the middle, but at either end of the tube is a small double-beating reed.Google Scholar

∗ cf Day, Catalogue of Military Exhibition, 1890, p. 70.Google Scholar

∗ Niblack (Report, 1888, p. 332) unfortunately describes this interesting instrument as “a whistle pure and simple, being blown by applying the lips as in a fife” ! It was to this form I alluded when, in speaking of the double-beating reeds, mention was made of a peculiar specimen in the British Museum, shaped and blown as a retreating reed, but having a small double-beating reed inserted at each of the ends which are rigid.Google Scholar

∗ It is necessary for this principle that the lower end of the tube should be closed, and for this purpose the wood is not cut away at the end, but left as a block. Similar tubes with open ends have either been originally intended for the ordinary double-beating reed as noticed on p. 125 note, or must be closed with the hand, which then serves the same purpose as the end block.Google Scholar

† I have since heard that this form is used in Warwickshire. In North-West Essex the popular “squeaker” is the double reed, the hollow stem of the rush being slit down about 1½ inches through the knot, the two halves drawn slightly apart, and the reed thus formed covered with the mouth. In my own county (Dorset) the shepherd boys construct the single vibrating reed from an oaten straw, a thin tongue being cut out of the straw towards the knot.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Niblack Report, 1888, p. 332, Plates lvii. and lxi.Google Scholar

† cf. Niblack Report, 1888. Plate lxii.Google Scholar

∗ Very similar oblong or quadrangular holes appear on a whistle flute from the Lengui tribe of North Chili, South America (Pitt-Rivers Museum).Google Scholar

† At Washington there is a covered double reed without finger-holes, but with the lower end shaped into a bell very similar to that of the trumpet. (cf. Niblack Report, 1888, Plate lxii., Fig. 332.)Google Scholar

‡ cf. Catalogue of Special Exhibition, 1872, No. 516.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 584.Google Scholar

† cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 629.Google Scholar

‡ cf Dawson Report, 1878–79, p. 139B. Dawson describes a small apparatus which is held in the mouth to produce a peculiar noise when dancing—the strange and startling sound being supposed to indicate a species of possession in an excited dancer. “One,” he says, “which I obtained consisted of a wooden tube roughly oval in section, ¾ inch in greatest width, with a length of 1¼ inches. This is composed of two pieces tied together with a strip of bark and within it are placed the vibrating pieces, each composed of two flat pieces of wood or reed tied together. In a box in one of the old houses in Parry Passage several such cells were found fitted in trumpet-shaped tubes about a foot in length made of cedar wood, each being composed of two pieces.” I presume that Dr. Boas alludes to similar instruments under the name “trumpet whistles.” (cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 512. Compare also Lao'laxa horn, p. 430.)Google Scholar

§ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians.Google Scholar

∗ cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, pp. 493 and 511.Google Scholar

† cf. Swan: Indians of Cape Flattery, p. 66.Google Scholar

‡ cf. Niblack Report, 1888, Plate lxii.Google Scholar

§ Dawson Report, 120b. cf. Boas: Kwakiutl Indians, p. 541.Google Scholar

‖ The employment of these whistles and reeds as an accompaniment to vocal music is unknown to the Indians. The popular and secret songs of the North-West Coast have been reported on by G. Dixon (“Voyage round the World,” London, 1789); F. Poole (“Queen Charlotte Islands,” London, 1872); and especially by Dr. F. Boas in his account of the Kwakiutl Indians (Washington, 1897).Google Scholar

∗ cf. Dawson Report, 1878–1879, 8b seq.Google Scholar

∗ The Tsimshians, who are coast dwellers settled at the mouth of the great Skeena River, are known to have communicated to the Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands the knowledge of the mystic rites with which the whistles are associated.Google Scholar

† It is interesting to note in connection with the description given above of the hour-glass form of instrument containing a concealed beating reed that in the mounds of Tennessee, Georgia, and the neighbouring States certain stone tubes of hour-glass form have been found and are generally supposed to be trumpets. Owing however to the large diameter of the upper end it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to sound them by the vibration of the lips, though the sound has been described by writers as terrific. And such would be the case if a wooden reed were inserted at the waist as in the common form of concealed reed found amongst the North-West Coast tribes cf. Wilson: Prehistoric Art, p 581.Google Scholar

Amongst the ruins in Mexico have been found specimens of the “Chayna”: if this was identical with the “Jaina” of some existing Indian tribes in Peru it was played with a double-beating reed. The Aztec “Acocotl” was also played with a reed. cf. Engel: History of Musical Instruments, p 73.Google Scholar

∗ In the Koluschan (Tlingit) family remote analogies to the Mexican tongue are in several of the northern tribes more marked than in any other (Gallatin).Google Scholar

† In this golden age, we are told, the air was filled with the sweet melody of birds. Were these the newly-formed whistles ? Native song-birds are rare.Google Scholar