instruments of India, consists of a hollow wooden body, usually
decorated with carving, a curious parchment belly covering only the
lower half of the body, and three strings either of gut or silk.
The Hindus divided their musical scale into several intervals smaller
than our modern semitones. They adopted twenty-two intervals called
_s’ruti_ in the compass of an octave, which may therefore be compared
to our chromatic intervals. As the frets of the _vina_ are movable the
performer can easily regulate them according to the scale, or mode,
which he requires for his music.
The harp has long been obsolete. If some Hindu drawings of it can be
relied upon, it had at an early time a triangular frame and was in
construction as well as in shape and size almost identical with the
Assyrian harp.
The Hindus claim to have invented the violin bow. They maintain that
the _ravanastra_, one of their old instruments played with the bow,
was invented about 5,000 years ago by Ravana, a mighty king of Ceylon.
However this may be, there is a great probability that the fiddle-bow
originated in Hindustan; because Sanskrit scholars inform us that
there are names for it in works which cannot be less than from 1,500
to 2,000 years old. The non-occurrence of any instrument played with a
bow on the monuments of the nations of antiquity is by no means so
sure a proof as has generally been supposed, that the bow was unknown.
The fiddle in its primitive condition must have been a poor
contrivance. It probably was despised by players who could produce
better tones with greater facility by twanging the strings with their
fingers, or with a plectrum. Thus it may have remained through many
centuries without experiencing any material improvement. It must also
be borne in mind that the monuments transmitted to us chiefly
represent historical events, religious ceremonies, and royal
entertainments. On such occasions instruments of a certain kind only
were used, and these we find represented; while others, which may have
been even more common, never occur. In 2,000 years’ time people will
possibly maintain that some highly perfected instrument popular with
them was entirely unknown to us, because it is at present in so
primitive a condition that no one hardly notices it.
“What the _ravanastra_, or _râbanastra_, was like is rather doubtful,
but at the present time there exists in Ceylon a primitive instrument
played with a bow, called _vinavah_, which has two strings of
different kinds, one made of a species of flax, and the other of
horsehair, which is the material also of the string of the bow…. The
hollow part of this instrument is half a cocoa-nut shell polished,
covered with the dried skin of a lizard, and perforated below.” (Day,
p. 102.)
This instrument again is almost identical with the Chinese fiddle
called _ur-heen_, which also has two strings, and a body consisting of
a small block of wood, hollowed out and covered with the skin of a
serpent. The _ur-heen_ has not been mentioned among the most ancient
instruments of the Chinese, since there is no evidence of its having
been known in China before the introduction of the Buddhist religion
into that country. From indications, which to point out would lead too
far here, it would appear that several instruments found in China
originated in Hindustan. They seem to have been gradually diffused
from Hindustan and Thibet, more or less altered in the course of time,
through the East as far as Japan.
Another curious Hindu instrument, probably of very high antiquity, is
the _pungi_, or _jinagovi_, also called _toumrie_ and _magoudi_. It
consists of a gourd or of the _cuddos_ nut, hollowed, into which two
reed-pipes are inserted. The _pungi_ therefore, somewhat resembles in
appearance a bagpipe. It is generally used by the _saperá_ or
snake-charmer, who plays upon it when exhibiting the antics of the
cobra. The name _magoudi_, given in certain districts to this
instrument, rather tends to corroborate the opinion of some musical
historians that the _magadis_ of the ancient Greeks was a sort of
double-pipe, or bagpipe.
Many instruments of Hindustan are known by different names in
different districts, and there are many varieties. On the whole, the
Hindus possess about fifty instruments. To describe them properly
would fill a volume. Some, which are in the Museum, will be found well
described and illustrated in the previously mentioned work by the late
Major C. R. Day, which, in addition to affording much valuable
information to the student and collector, contains a lengthy
bibliography of Indian music and musical instruments.
THE PERSIANS AND ARABS.
Of the musical instruments of the ancient Persians, before the
Christian era, scarcely anything is known. It may be surmised that
they closely resembled those of the Assyrians, and probably also those
of the Hebrews.
The harp, _chang_, in olden time a favourite instrument of the
Persians, has gradually fallen into desuetude. A small harp is
represented in the celebrated sculptures which exist on a stupendous
rock, called Tak-i-Bostan, in the vicinity of the town of Kermanshah.
These sculptures are said to have been executed during the lifetime of
the Persian monarch Chosroes II. (591-628). They form the ornaments of
two lofty arches, and consist of representations of field sports and
aquatic amusements. In one of the boats is seated a man in an
ornamental dress, with a halo round his head, who is receiving an
arrow from one of his attendants; while a female, who is sitting near
him, plays on a Trigonon. Towards the top of the bas-relief is
represented a stage, on which are performers on small straight
trumpets and little hand drums; six harpers; and four other musicians,
apparently females――the first of whom plays a flute; the second, a
sort of Pandean pipe; the third, an instrument which is too much
defaced to be recognisable; and the fourth, a bagpipe. Two harps of a
peculiar shape were copied by Sir Gore Ousely from Persian manuscripts
about four hundred years old, resembling, in the principle on which
they are constructed, all other oriental harps. There existed
evidently various kinds of the _chang_. It may be remarked here that
the instrument _tschenk_ (or _chang_) in use at the present day in
Persia, is more like a dulcimer than a harp. The Arabs adopted the
harp from the Persians, and called it _junk_.
The Persians appear to have adopted, at an early period, smaller
musical intervals than semitones. When the Arabs conquered Persia
(A.D. 641) the Persians had already attained a higher degree of
civilisation than their conquerors. The latter found in Persia the
cultivation of music considerably in advance of their own, and the
musical instruments superior also. They soon adopted the Persian
instruments, and there can be no doubt that the musical system
exhibited by the earliest Arab writers whose works on the theory of
music have been preserved was based upon an older system of the
Persians. In these works the octave is divided in seventeen
_one-third-tones_――intervals which are still made use of in the East.
Some of the Arabian instruments are constructed so as to enable the
performer to produce the intervals with exactness. The frets on the
lute and tamboura, for instance, are regulated with a view to this
object.
The Arabs had to some extent become acquainted with many of the
Persian instruments before the time of their conquest of Persia. An
Arab musician of the name of Nadr Ben el-Hares Ben Kelde is recorded
as having been sent to the Persian King Chosroes II., in the sixth
century, for the purpose of learning Persian singing and performing on
the lute. Through him, it is said, the lute was brought to Mekka. Saib
Chatir, the son of a Persian, is spoken of as the first performer on
the lute in Medina, A.D. 682; and of an Arab lutist, Ebn Soreidsch
from Mekka, A.D. 683, it is especially mentioned that he played in the
Persian style; evidently the superior one. The lute, _el-ood_, had
before the tenth century only four strings, or four pairs producing
four tones, each tone having two strings tuned in unison. About the
tenth century a string for a fifth tone was added. The strings were
made of silk neatly twisted. The neck of the instrument was provided
with frets of string, which were carefully regulated according to the
system of seventeen intervals in the compass of an octave before
mentioned. Other favourite stringed instruments were the _tamboura_, a
kind of lute with a long neck, and the _quanūn_, a kind of dulcimer
strung with lamb’s gut strings (generally three in unison for each
tone) and played upon with two little plectra which the performer had
fastened to his fingers. The _quanūn_ is likewise still in use in
countries inhabited by Muhammadans. The Persian _santir_, the
prototype of our dulcimer, is mounted with wire strings and played
with two slightly curved sticks. The musician depicted in the
left-hand corner of Fig. 15_c_ is playing a _santir_.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.――_a._ KEMÁNGEII, SITÂRA OR FIDDLE.
Persian. About 1800. No. 939-’73. L. 36½ in.;
diam. 8 in.
_b._ NUY (Flute). Persian. 19th century. L. 17⅜ in.
No. 959-’86.
_c._ SANTIR (Dulcimer) CASE. Persian. L. 33 in.;
W. 11½ in. No. 779-’76.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
Al-Farabi, one of the earliest Arabian musical theorists known, who
lived in the beginning of the tenth century, does not allude to the
fiddle-bow. This is noteworthy inasmuch as it seems in some measure to
support the opinion maintained by some historians that the bow
originated in England or Wales. Unfortunately we possess no exact
descriptions of the Persian and Arabian instruments between the tenth
and fourteenth centuries, otherwise we should probably have earlier
accounts of some instrument of the violin kind in Persia.
Ash-shakandi, who lived in Spain about A.D. 1200, mentions the
_rabôb_, which may have been in use for centuries without having been
thought worthy of notice on account of its rudeness. Persian writers
of the fourteenth century speak of two instruments of the violin
class, viz., the _rabôb_ and the _kemángeh_. As regards the
_kemángeh_, the Arabs themselves assert that they obtained it from
Persia, and their statement appears all the more worthy of belief from
the fact that both names, _rabôb_ and _kemángeh_, are originally
Persian.
The _nuy_, a flute (Fig. 15_b_), and the _surnai_, a species of oboe,
are still popular in the East.
The _sitâra_ is a Persian three stringed instrument with a wooden body
and a parchment belly (Fig. 15_a_).
The Arabs must have been indefatigable constructors of musical
instruments. Kiesewetter gives a list of above two hundred names of
Arabian instruments, and this does not include many known to us
through Spanish historians. A careful investigation of the musical
instruments of the Arabs during their sojourn in Spain is particularly
interesting to the student of mediæval music, inasmuch as it reveals
the Eastern origin of many instruments which are generally regarded as
European inventions. Introduced into Spain by the Saracens and the
Moors they were gradually diffused towards northern Europe. The
English, for instance, adopted not only the Moorish dance (morris
dance) but also the _kuitra_ (gittern), the _el-ood_ (lute), the
_rabôb_ (rebec), the _naḳḳárah_ (naker), and several others. In
an old Cornish sacred drama, supposed to date from the fourteenth
century, we have in an enumeration of musical instruments the
_nakrys_, designating “kettle-drums.” It must be remembered that the
Cornish language, which has now become obsolete, was nearly akin to
the Welsh. Indeed, names of musical instruments derived from the Moors
in Spain occur in almost every European language.
Not a few fanciful stories are traditionally preserved among the Arabs
testifying to the wonderful effects they ascribed to the power of
their instrumental performances. One example will suffice. Al-Farabi
had acquired his proficiency in Spain, in one of the schools at
Cordova which flourished as early as towards the end of the ninth
century, and his reputation became so great that ultimately it
extended to Asia. The mighty Caliph of Bagdad himself desired to hear
the celebrated musician, and sent messengers to Spain with
instructions to offer rich presents to him and to convey him to the
court. But Al-Farabi feared that if he went he should be retained in
Asia, and should never again see the home to which he felt deeply
attached. At last he resolved to disguise himself, and ventured to
undertake the journey which promised him a rich harvest. Dressed in a
mean costume, he made his appearance at the court just at the time
when the caliph was being entertained with his daily concert.
Al-Farabi, unknown to everyone, was permitted to exhibit his skill on
the lute. Scarcely had he commenced his performance in a certain
musical mode when he set all his audience laughing aloud,
notwithstanding the efforts of the courtiers to suppress so unbecoming
an exhibition of mirth in the royal presence. In truth, even the
caliph himself was compelled to burst out into a fit of laughter.
Presently the performer changed to another mode, and the effect was
that immediately all his hearers began to sigh, and soon tears of
sadness replaced the previous tears of mirth. Again he played in
another mode, which excited his audience to such a rage that they
would have fought each other if he, seeing the danger, had not
directly gone over to an appeasing mode. After this wonderful
exhibition of his skill Al-Farabi concluded in a mode which had the
effect of making his listeners fall into a profound sleep, during
which he took his departure.
It will be seen that this incident is almost identical with one
recorded as having happened about twelve hundred years earlier at the
court of Alexander the Great, and which forms the subject of Dryden’s
“Alexander’s Feast.” The distinguished flutist Timotheus successively
aroused and subdued different passions by changing the musical modes
during his performance, exactly in the same way as did Al-Farabi.
VI.
AMERICAN INDIAN.
If the preserved antiquities of the American Indians, dating from a
period anterior to our discovery of the western hemisphere, possess an
extraordinary interest because they afford trustworthy evidence of the
degree of progress which the aborigines had attained in the
cultivation of the arts and in their social condition before they came
in contact with Europeans, it must be admitted that the ancient
musical instruments of the American Indians are also worthy of
examination. Several of them are constructed in a manner which, in
some degree, reveals the characteristics of the musical system
prevalent among the people who used the instruments. And although most
of these interesting relics, which have been obtained from tombs and
other hiding-places, may not be of great antiquity, it has been
satisfactorily ascertained that they are genuine contrivances of the
Indians before they were influenced by European civilisation.
Some account of these relics is therefore likely to prove of interest
also to the ethnologist, especially as several facts may perhaps be
found of assistance in elucidating the still unsolved problem as to
the probable original connection of the American with Asiatic races.
Among the instruments of the Aztecs in Mexico and of the Peruvians
none have been found so frequently, and have been preserved in their
former condition so unaltered, as pipes and flutes. They are generally
made of pottery or of bone, substances which are unsuitable for the
construction of most other instruments, but which are remarkably well
qualified to withstand the decaying influence of time. There is,
therefore, no reason to conclude from the frequent occurrence of such
instruments that they were more common than other kinds of which
specimens have rarely been discovered.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.――POTTERY WHISTLES. Ancient Mexican.
British Museum.]
The Mexicans possessed a small whistle formed of baked clay, a
considerable number of which have been found. Some specimens (Fig. 16)
are singularly grotesque in shape, representing caricatures of the
human face and figure, birds, beasts, and flowers. Some were provided
at the top with a finger-hole which, when closed, altered the pitch of
the sound, so that two different tones were producible on the
instrument. Others had a little ball of baked clay lying loose inside
the air-chamber. When the instrument was blown the current of air set
the ball in a vibrating motion, thereby causing a shrill and whirring
sound. A similar contrivance is sometimes made use of by Englishmen
for conveying signals. The Mexican whistle most likely served
principally the same purpose, but it may possibly have been used also
in musical entertainments. In the Russian horn band each musician is
restricted to a single tone; and similar combinations of
performers――only, of course, much more rude――have been witnessed by
travellers among some tribes in Africa and America.
Rather more complete than the above specimens are some of the whistles
and small pipes which have been found in graves of the Indians of
Chiriqui in Central America.
The pipe of the Aztecs, which is called by the Mexican Spaniards
_pito_, somewhat resembled our flageolet: the material was a reddish
pottery, and it was provided with four linger holes. Although among
about half a dozen specimens which the writer has examined some are
considerably larger than others, they all have, singularly enough, the
same pitch of sound. The smallest is about six inches in length, and
the largest about nine inches. Several _pitos_ have been found in a
remarkably well-preserved condition. They are easy to blow, and their
order of intervals is in conformity with the pentatonic scale, thus:
[Music: treble clef, quarter notes A B C# E F#] The usual shape of the
_pito_ is that here represented (Fig. 17_a_ & _c_). A specimen of a
less common shape, is given in Fig. 17_b_. They are all in the British
Museum. Indications suggestive of the popular estimation in which the
flute (or perhaps, more strictly speaking, the pipe) was held by the
Aztecs are not wanting. It was played in religious observances, and we
find it referred to allegorically in orations delivered on solemn
occasions. For instance, at the religious festival which was held in
honour of Tezcatlepoca――a divinity depicted as a handsome youth, and
considered second only to the supreme being――a young man was
sacrificed who, in preparation for the ceremony, had been instructed
in the art of playing the flute. Twenty days before his death four
young girls, named after the principal goddesses, were given to him as
companions; and when the hour arrived in which he was to be sacrificed
he observed the established symbolical rite of breaking a flute on
each of the steps, as he ascended the temple.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.――PITOS (flageolets of pottery). _a._ and
_c._ Ancient Mexican.
_b._ From the Island of Sacrificios.
British Museum.]
[Illustration: 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.
18_b_ & _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. 18_a_) 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.