Contextual Associations
This unnamed end-blown cylindrical duct flute is from the Santal people of eastern Indian and Bangladesh. The Santal, an Austroasiatic people, are the largest minority group in India and their music traditions are independent of the subcontinent’s two great traditions, Hindustani music (or North Indian music) and Karnatak music (or South Indian music). They are spread over a large area and it would appear that there exists regional differences in dialect, musical practice, and names of instruments. There is not much information available about Santal musical practices, but flutes are generally mentioned as being important to their cultural ways. The flute pictured here is just one of several types of flutes used by the Santal with perhaps the best known type being a side-blown flute called, in some areas, the tirio, in others tirayu. Available literature does not provide much if any detail on the end-blown Santal flutes or their specific contexts of use, but flute playing amongst the Santal is often performed by males (Dewa, p. 41). Some Santal groups are known for the effort they put into constructing and decorating their musical instruments. The addition of metal decoration to its bamboo flutes, as is the case for the instrument discussed presently, is mentioned in some sources (see Musée de la Castre Cannes, 2012, and Musée de Philharmonie de Paris, n.d.).
Description
Made from a straight, perfectly cylindrical length of thick-walled bamboo that includes two natural nodes and a bore diameter of 1-inch. The upper node (approximately 2.5 inches in from the blowing end) is entirely cleaned out and replaced with a wood plug that blocks the bore except for a narrow slit that serves as an internal duct. This duct directs the airstream against the sharp edge of a square blowhole beveled into the exterior of the tube four inches below its blowing end (detail #1). The top two inches or so of the flute therefore function as a wind chest. The lower node, located about 2.5 inches in from the bottom end of the flute, is left mostly intact except for a 3/8-inch opening at its center. While the total exterior length of the instrument is 18.5 inches, its air cavity is only 16 inches long with a sudden and pronounced interior constriction at approximately 13 inches. Six fingerholes are burnt through the wall of the instrument between the two nodes. They form a straight line with the blowhole (detail #2), the top hole located at the midway point of both the instrument’s total length and the length between its nodes. There are no fingerholes on the backside of the instrument (detail #3). The exterior of the flute’s two ends (from its two nodes to their nearest termini) are covered with metal (copper or pewter) sleeves with some geometric design patterns around their rims (detail #4).
Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production
The player holds the flute with the wind-chest end placed against his mouth and the fingerholes on the top. We have not seen an image or video of the an end-blown Santal flute being played, but video footage of the tirio (fast forward to 9:17), the side-blown relative of this instrument, being played shows that the first two fingers of the player’s left hand are used to cover the upper-most two fingerholes and the four fingers of the right hand the bottom four fingerholes; the thumbs of both hands are placed on the bottom side of the instrument for balance. It is at least possible that a similar distribution of fingers is applied to playing the end-blown Santal flute.
Origins/History/Evolution
Other than flutes, especially side-blown ones, being deeply associated with Santal lifeways, no information was found on the origin and evolution of the end-blown Santal flute. End-blown flutes are relatively rare in South Asia, and when found are usually associated with herders (Marcuse, p. 577). End-blown flutes with an integral wind chest seem to be even rarer.
Bibliographic Citations
Daricha Foundation. 2020. “Tribal Instruments of West Bengal : The Tirio of the Santals.” YouTube video accessed 03/11/2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrhDqB6fr0
Deva, B. Chaitanya. 1977. “The Santals and Their Musical Instruments,” Jahrbuch für musikalische Volks- u. Völkerkunde 8: 36-46.
Dick, Alistair. 2014. “Tirayu.” GDMI v. 5: 23.
Knight, Roderic. 1988. Review of: Santal Music: A Study in Pattern and Process of Cultural Persistence, by Onkar Prasad. Ethnomusicology 32/1: 154-155.
A Survey of Musical Instruments. New York: Harper & Row, Publications.
Musée de la Castre Cannes. 2012. “Détours des Mondes—Arts lointains, Espaces de cultures.” Website accessed 03/02/2022: https://detoursdesmondes.typepad.com/dtours_des_mondes/2012/04/santal-tribal-arts.html
Musée de Philharmonie de Paris. n.d. “Flute with side mouthpiece ‘Tirio’.” Website accessed 03/10/2022: https://collectionsdumusee.philharmoniedeparis.fr/doc/MUSEE/0157447?_ga=2.23063291.1766902807.1646932003-1498100744.1630412569#
Prasad, Onkar. 1985. Santal Music: A Study in Pattern and Process of Cultural Persistence. New Delhi: Inter-India Publications.
Tewari, Laxmi G. 1987. Review of: Santal Music: A Study in Pattern and Process of Cultural Persistence, by Onkar Prasad. Asian Folklore Studies 46/1: 143-146.
