HISTORY OF THE

PLAINS FLUTE

By Karen Patonai
Birth of a Flute - 1110
Instructor: Dr. Oscar G. Anderson
 Over the ages the music of the flute floating through the air has
touched the human spirit, giving a sense of peace and silence to our
hearts. We have danced and sung with the flute. We have lifted the
dance of the skies; and courted the ones we love. With the flute we have
asked for rain and fertility. We have spoken to the birds and to the
forests. We have opened a path to some mystical world beyond our
minds (Odell Borg).

Flute artifacts have been discovered around the world for decades,
the oldest are dated around 3500 BC. For the Americas; in 1931 five
Anasazi flutes dating between 620 and 630 A.D. were found in the
Broken Flute Cave of the Prayer Rock District in Northern Arizona. The
name Broken Flute Cave was named by the Morris excavation team of
its time.

Digressing from the flute for a moment; I found an interesting fact

which pertains to the word Anasazi. 1000 years ago, when their
civilization rose in the Southwest, the people who built these great
stone structures did not call themselves Anasazi. That word did not
even exist: It was created, centuries later by Navajo workers who were
hired by white men to dig for pots and skeletons out in the desert. It is
a word that has recently fallen out of favor. So what's wrong with it?

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 For starters, it's a Navajo word unrelated to any of the Pueblo
peoples, who are modern day descendants of the Anasazi. But more
than that, the word is a veiled insult. For a long time, it was
romantically and incorrectly thought to mean old ones. It actually
means enemy ancestors. In Navajo, Anai means alien, enemy,
foreigner, or non-Navajo. Anaa means war. Sazi translates to
something or someone that was once whole and is now scattered, as a
body turns to bone and is strewn by scavengers and erosion
(www.hcn.org). The native flute maker, Marlon Magdalena suggests
that a more appropriate term for that Anasazi flute would be to name it
the Ancestral Pueblo flute.

The panpipe flute origin is traced deep within the Peruvian culture.
These include, for example; the Nasca (1100 BC-700 A.D.), the Paracas
(600 BC-175 BC), and the Moche (100 A.D.-800 A.D.). Read, cane,
ceramic, condor quill, and bone panpipes have been found across the
Andes into the Central American territories of the Maya and Aztec
civilizations, to the Cahokia on the Mississippi River. Dating back to
between 1 A.D. and 500 A.D., the Panpipe flute was uncovered at a
Hopewellian mound in Mt. Vernon Ohio. These artifacts are the oldest
known flutes on the northern American continent. Archaeologists
coined the term Hopewell tradition or cultures as a means to
differentiate the current and Native American inhabitants of the
northern American Indian between 200 BC and 500 A.D.
(www.nativefluteswalking.com).

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 With all that history I learned on this topic, I am surprised to
discover that the earliest known example of the woodwind
instrument, the Plains flute, dates no further than the 1800s. One
reason may be because the Native American people did not practice
written documentation of their history and cultural way of life. While
Native Americans have been playing whistles and flutes for millennia,
for the Plains flute, artifacts and written accounts are only able to show
us a few hundred years of history in the northern Great Plains region;
between the Great Lakes and the upper Missouri River. Another factor
may be due to what anthropologist now estimates that some 95% of
the people of the American continent parish as a result of disease as
well as other factors, following the first contact of Europeans. However,
we do have a historical oral tradition of many tribes of beautiful stories
about the flute; including the often told tale of the woodpecker giving
the first flute to a young man, so he may win the heart of his love.

We do know that Cedar was the foremost material used to make the
early Plains flute. Thanks to the special quality of this woods
characteristics of being most resistant to warping, moisture, and
insects. There are far too many variations of flute type and wood used
to list. One reason is that each and every handmade flute is meant to
be a personal, heartfelt preference in its design, look, feel, and sound.
This leads me to believe that if and when a flute artifact is found. What
you found is something of a single person. What you holding your
hands is a piece of that person's individual history, did he win his love
with this flute? Did the rains come with his song? Was the music from it
able to sooth the hearts of its listeners?

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The Broken Flute Cave: Prayer Rock District

Photo taken by Earl H. Morris

 Citing

High Spirits Flute (www.highspirits.com)

High Country News (www.hcn.org)

Native Flute Walking (www.nativefluteswalking.com)

Native American Flute (www.flutpedia.com)