- Add to Favorites
-
Your web browser does not support
Add to Favorites.
Please add the site using your bookmark menu.
The function is available only on Internet Explorer
Flute made of wood with an elliptical cross-section, made of two halves mounted together. There is a carving at the lower closed end; at the upper open end is a human head with mother-of-pearl eyes and an extended tongue. The ends and the middle are wrapped around with a twisted cord. There is a large opening in the middle. The flute was played as a lengthwise flute, blowing into, or against the larger end opening. Variations in pitch could be produced by movement of the fingers over the sound-hole in the middle. The player could also sing or speak into the instrument. The playing of the flutes is also shown in representations of ancestors. The instrument represents a peculiar development among the instruments of Oceania. This type of flute is the one most commonly represented in the collections from Cook's voyages. Georg Forster described it as they found it among the Maori which they met in Queen Charlotte Sound in June 1773: "a third instrument, which our people called a flute, consisted of a hollow tube, which was widest in the middle, and in this area, as at both ends, there was an opening".
Map Of Museums
SEE ALL MASTERPIECES
OF THIS MUSEUM
)
)
