Instruments of the spirit

Father Louis J. Luzbetak/Tua playing a kambar

Wahgi and Shimbu melodies. Two men play on their home made 'spirit' flutes kambar) recorded by Louis Luzbetak in Papua New Guinea. From the record Primitive Music of the World [Folkways, 1962] selected and edited by Henry Cowell. The image of Tua playing a kambar comes from a slide taken by Dr. Michael David Peter O'Hanlon in 1979 in the Wahgi Valley in Papua New Guinea. Since the image is in the collection of the British Museum, the data for it are impeccable. I quote from the page dedicated to it: "Previously, such flutes were secret from women and revealed only to boys at initiation; while no longer secret, they made and played only during the Pig Festival." Father Louis J. Luzbetak (1918-2005, American) was a professor of Cultural Anthropology at Georgetown University. He studied the Wahgi extensively in 1954 and I may assume the recording was also made in that year.

Musical bow (Mitsogho)/Pierre Sallee

Harp and vocal solo from the Bwiti ritual from the LP Gabon: Musiques des Mitsogho et des Bateke [Musee de l'Homme, Ocora, 1968] recorded by Pierre Sallee. The Bwiti is an all male sacred ceremony that involves ingesting the bitter root from the iboga tree. Initiates enter other dimensions and see the past, present, and future of their own lives. [MusicRepublic, blog] Pierre Salle (1933-1987, French) was an ethnomusicologist known for work in Gabon.