Skudučiavimo ištakos

Abstract

In this article multi-pipe whistles of North-Eastern Europe: Lithuanian skuduchiai, kuima chipsan of Komi Zyrians, pöljannez of Permian Komi, Russian kuvikly of Briansk (Kaluga) region and kugikly of Kursk region are analysed by means of comparative typological method. It becomes evident after comparison that these musical instruments are related not only by the same construction (all of them are separate, not linked together, without holes and with one end closed), but also by collective performance and many other things. They were all made of umbellate plants and tuned "by eye" and "by ear", were similar in methods of music performance, in the imitative origin of repertoire, the traditions of usage, etc. The names of separate whistles and of the instrument itself are related to the names of birds and imitation of their voices. The sounds made by birds and other animals and performed by multi- pipe whistles are expressed by the same verbs in the languages. Syllabic nomination of separate parts of musical pieces coincide with the imitation of voices of birds in folklore, and their rhythmic patterns repeat the rhythm of bird warbling. Relations between playing multi-pipe whistles instruments and birds assist in tracing the most archaic totemic relicts of the perception of ancestors' cult, and in making suppositions that the instruments under review and the music performed by these instruments during rites might have the meaning of ritual mask. This idea may be well supported by the parallels with primitive cultures of the world. The naming of whistles by the names of fingers, their tuning by measuring distance between the pipes by fingers, etc. might be related to primeval counting. The analysis of historical and archaeological material enables us to presume that these instruments have been already used since stone age up to the second half of the 20th century in North- Eastern Europe. Detailed examination of issues of ethnic history of the Balts, Eastern Slavs and Permian Finns indicates to reciprocity and close relations of these three ethnic groups, which could be predetermined by a common ethno-cultural base of the territories implied. The data of researches allow the supposition, that multi-pipe whistles could exist in the whole forests zone of the North-Eastern Europe, and the centres of playing these instruments nowadays in Lithuania, Russia and Komi are only the remaining small islands. It is possible that in these territories covered by massive forests a community having similar ethno-musical and ethno-cultural basis once existed from which later different ethnic groups and nations sprung or settled in their territories. They have preserved archaic multi-pipe type instruments and traditions of pipe music making.