546 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



Indian flutes are of the type known to musicians as the recorder, or 

 flute a bee,* which was the European flute of the Middle Ages. It 

 was held in a vertical position and blown at the end, the instrument 

 preceding the transverse flute of the present day. The recorder is 

 played by blowing into an air chamber at the upper end of a tube, 

 the sound being produced by a whistle opening similar to that of an 

 organ pipe.^ The typical Indian flute is made of any soft wood with a 

 straight grain, and the number of finger holes varies in different 

 tribes. Flutes are made of cane in tribes that lack suitable wood, and 

 in modern times a gun barrel or piece of metal pipe is used in making 

 a flute. The only transverse flute that I have collected is a cane flute 

 obtained among the Yuma.^" The playing of many flutes has been 

 recorded and transcribed in notation. In some tribes it is said that 

 certain songs may either be sung or played on the flute, and the 

 Menominee said that love songs were imitations of flute melodies." 

 Several legends of the origin of the flute have been obtained, one of 

 the most interesting being that of the Papago.^^ 



The whistle is a simple form of the flute a bee. Among the Indians 

 it is generally made of the wing bone of a bird and connected with a 

 ceremony or with the exercise of magic power. Such whistles and 

 the wooden whistles are usually short. Certain Plains tribes, how- 

 ever, used a "grass dance whistle" made of wood and about 25 inches 

 in length. This was described by the Sioux and a specimen obtained 

 from an Hidatsa named Pan on the Fort Berthold Reservation. He 

 recorded a performance on the instrument, part of which was 

 transcribed. A portion of the long harmonic series was produced on 

 this whistle, and it is possible that Indians using such a whistle may 

 have obtained a perception of overtones from the instrument. 



Robert Henry (pi. 6, fig. 2) is one of the Choctaw medicine men who 

 blow whistles the night before and during a ball game. Each group 

 of players is assisted by the blowing of such whistles. Henry had 

 three whistles, differently marked. The illustration shows a whistle 

 with a crude face, said to be his personal mark. 



SCOPE OF THE WORK 



The scope of the work has been broad. It was my plan to select 

 representative tribes in each of the large areas, and songs have been 

 recorded from the following: 



«nnndbook of the Collection of Musical Instruments in the United States National 

 Museum, U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 136. pp. 25-27, 1927. 



» DensHiore, Frnnccs, Chippewa Customs. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 86, pp. 167, 168, 1929. 



"Densmore, Frances, Yuman and Yaqui Music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 110 pp 25 26 

 1932. ' ' 



" Densmore, Frances, Menominee Music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 102, p. 208, 1932. 



»a Densmore, Frances, Papago Music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 90, pp, 54-77,' 1929. 



