Tlingit Rattle as Archaic Culture Element and Sound Picture of the World

Abstract

Archaic phenomenon acts at all levels of modern musical culture, from musical mentality as a base of creative process in musicians and composers practice to musical communications, which characterizes various kinds of social and cultural activity. The archaic reflection in music is one of the actual problem in the research of modern musicologists. It is possible to study archaic music elements in traditional and modern music forms and music ideology in a mass culture as musical-cultural archetypes of a contemporary epoch. Archaic and traditional music of different nations of the world is considered as a form of collective art memory that keeps the basic information structures of primitive and ancient cultures. It is seen in various ways: in mythological images and ceremonial practice, numerical symbolism and philosophical knowledge, and in elements of the musical text and in musical- cultural models. The reference to mythological sources gives the chance to present a sound picture of the world (SPW) in archaic culture. It corresponds with terms world-hearing (A. D. Caseres) and ethnohearing (I. I. Zemtsovsky). Mythological models of musical or musical culture mentality exists in the Northern American Indians (Kwakiutl) myth about Wakiash and a Frog. Tlingit rattle decorated the scene of the myth is both the element of archaic culture and the model of sound world picture.