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Livika, also known as lunut, lounut, lounot, loanuat, lounuet, and also referred to as lounuat and kulepa ganez, kulepaganeg, is a unique friction woodblock (referred to in English as a friction block) or a friction-based idiophone. It is exclusively found in the Malanggan cultural region on the island of New Ireland, which is part of Papua New Guinea. Carved from a single wooden block, three tongues produce varying high-pitched sounds when stroked by hand. In the past, this sound-producing instrument, shrouded in strict taboos, was utilized in magical-religious ceremonies. The friction woodblock, kept hidden and played in secrecy, primarily featured in the mourning ritual for a significant deceased man, creating penetrating sequences of tones experienced as a spirit voice or bird call.
Distribution
The island of New Ireland, situated in Melanesia, stretches over a narrow strip for about 350 kilometers from northwest to southeast between the 2nd and 5th latitudes. Although New Ireland lies just south of the equator, regional longer dry periods occur due to the southeast trade winds, which sometimes posed problems for agriculture because of the permeable calcareous soils. In response, the population attempted to address these dry spells with rainmaking ceremonies that required specific wooden figures. However, the majority of the cult figures and other carved artworks, known in ethnology and the art world under the term "Malanggan," had ritual significance for elaborate funeral ceremonies of individual kinship groups. Malanggan serves as an overarching term encompassing traditional artistic creations (the style and the created objects) and the associated cult practices consisting of rituals and celebrations, specifically funeral rites. The lounuat represents a small aspect of the highly diverse wood carvings in the Malanggan style, which include standing figures (totok), two to five-meter-high statues carved from a single trunk, horizontal friezes, relief boards, animal figures, and dance masks. The Malanggan culture is confined to the northern regions of New Ireland up to the 3rd latitude, including the smaller islands of Lavongai, Dyaul, and the Tabar Island group.[1]
Art historians differentiate the Uli figures from the Malanggan carvings based on stylistic characteristics found in the northern central region of New Ireland. While the first indication of Malanggan art dates back to a drawing in the travel report of the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman from the year 1643, the specific type of dual-sex Uli figures remained unknown in literature until the early 20th century. In 1900, a German government station was established in Kavieng in northern New Ireland, then known as Neumecklenburg and part of the colony of German New Guinea. The Uli figures housed in museums were collected from that time until around 1930. Along with the carved figures used for ancestor worship, this stylistic region includes two to three-meter-wide disks woven from bast ("Sun Malanggan"), circular chest ornaments (kapkap), and also the friction woodblock lounuat.[2] The term "traditional 'earlier' cult practices" refers to the time before the cultural upheavals that began with German colonial rule at the end of the 19th century.
Augustin Krämer (1865–1941), who extensively explored the South Seas around the turn of the century and published a book in 1925 titled Die Malanggane von Tombara (The Malanggane of Tombara), believed that the Lelet mountain region in the northern central area of New Ireland was the homeland of the lounuat. However, this assertion has not been definitively proven. In the title, by using the geographical name "Tombara," Krämer incorrectly refers to the island otherwise known at that time as Neumecklenburg, which likely stems from a misunderstanding because when questioned by Europeans, the locals responded with the word taubar, which actually means "southeast trade winds."[3] Krämer referred to the friction woodblock by the name livika, derived from vika, a term in the Oceanic language of the island's center meaning "bird" or a particular bird. Researchers at that time found that lounuat were primarily produced in a few villages in the Lelet mountains and also in the village of Hamba, located a few kilometers north in the Malanggan region.[4]
Construction
Friction idiophones form a rare group within the realm of idiophones ("self-sounding instruments"), which are set into vibration not by striking but by stroking over a smooth surface with the hand or an object. In Europe, this includes the relatively recent Nail Violin, a melodic instrument where variously long iron nails are bowed with a violin bow. Simpler is the Catalan folk music instrument ossets, which consists of several bird bones sorted by size and strung together on a cord. The musician hangs the cord around the neck, tightens it with one hand at the bottom, and strokes the bones with a ring held in the other hand.[5] When rubbed over a smooth surface, a clear, bright tone can be produced, as with the Glass Armonica or the Glass Harmonica.
However, if the surface of the sounding body is grooved or provided with ridges, it becomes a scraper instrument, which, when stroked with a solid stick, produces a crackling noise. Scraper instruments were used in some cultures during religious rituals, such as notched human thigh bones that the Mixtecs used during cults in the late post-classic period before the arrival of the Spaniards in the early 16th century, until they were collected by Christian missionaries.[6]
The Hornbostel-Sachs classification system makes a corresponding distinction by classifying scraper instruments as "indirectly struck idiophones" (112.2) and creating a separate group for friction idiophones (13). The lounuat belongs in this group to the friction vessels (133), termed as "friction vessels" in English, and the multi-part glass harp belongs to the category of friction vessel play (133.2). Independent traditional friction vessels otherwise only include the turtle shells used in rituals in Central and South America in the past. A part of the shell is smeared with resin or beeswax, and when the player strokes it with a finger or a stick, it produces a squeaking tone. Such friction vessels, now found in museums, existed until the mid-20th century in the Brazilian state of Amazonas (specifically known as kjúumuhe, ujerica, or gu coro).[7]
The early descriptions of the lounuat are partially erroneous and unreliable, and some have been uncritically adopted by later authors. Franz Hernsheim (1845–1909), one of the earliest entrepreneurs in German South Sea trade and the German consul in Jaluit, wrote in his published Südsee-Erinnerungen (1875–1880) (South Seas Memories (1875–1880)) in 1883 about the lounuat:[8]
It is a massive, round piece of wood; the upper surface is smooth and polished, intersected by 3 incisions, which widen towards the center of the wood into cavities of various sizes. Rubbing with the moist palm over the incisions produces 3 different tones. We saw such instruments up to 2 meters long and several feet in diameter.
The description is accurate; however, Hernsheim apparently confused the size with the slit drum, as such a long lounuat could not be operated by one person. The ethnologist Otto Finsch pointed out this confusion in 1914.[9] In the catalog of the collection of the Natural History Museum Vienna from 1893, Finsch describes a lounuat under the name kulegaganeg, which consists of a gently rounded soft wood measuring 40 centimeters in length and 14 centimeters in width. Finsch states the typical length as 35 to 45 centimeters, with the smallest museum specimen being a 16-centimeter-long example.[10]
Slit drums made from tree trunks, such as the garamut used in Papua New Guinea, are widespread in Melanesia and consist of several-meter-long tree trunks slit and hollowed out on one side. On New Ireland, they are ritually played by two men with long poles. A lounuat mentioned by Paul Collaer (1974) from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels is 50 centimeters long, 16 centimeters wide, and 21 centimeters high.[11] The three tongues are not rubbed with moist hands or, as Collaer indicates and Hans Oesch mistakenly adopts in the New Handbook of Musicology (1987),[12] rubbed with palm oil, as this would prevent friction and thus tone production, but with a resin milk from suitable trees such as the Papaya tree or the Breadfruit tree. This method of sound production is accurately depicted in a catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1914. The instrument listed there under the name kulepa ganez is 40 centimeters long, 13 centimeters wide, and 25 centimeters high.[13] An entry in The American History and Encyclopedia of Music (1910) compares the sound production of the wood, also called kulepa ganez, with the glass harmonica but mistakenly states that four tones can be produced from four wooden parts.[14] The fact that the instrument described in this way only has three freely swinging wooden segments and thus only produces three tones is shown in the illustration in Curt Sachs' Real Lexicon from 1913, which also incorrectly mentions four tones for the kulepa ganez.[15] The solid rear part of the lounuat does not produce any sound. To summarize once again, the confused size specifications are found in the musical instrument lexicon of Sibyl Marcuse (1964), which lists under the heading "Nunut" a wooden block up to 2 meters long and 60 centimeters in diameter with "four huge teeth."[16] Nevertheless, some lounuat are mentioned in the literature with actually four or five wooden tongues. In contrast, there are no instruments known with only two tongues, even though Jaap Kunst (1931) describes the listed "rubbing instrument" in this way. The accompanying illustration shows a typical lounuat with three tongues.[17]
The classification of the instrument is also incorrect in some cases. While the misleading assignment "drum" has generally become established for the "slit drum" (although it is not a Membranophone), the term "Friction drum" for the lounuat leads to a completely different type of instrument. An analogous English term to "slit gong" (alternatively to "slit drum") is "friction gong".
Augustin Krämer (1925) describes the lounuat as a "grinding drum" and interprets a bird shape into the entire form: "The beak side, therefore the underside, has three tongues, of which the two middle ones can be interpreted as legs, and the last one as a retracted tail."[18] The approximately oval or egg-shaped outer form with its characteristic three incisions from the side also prompted other authors to interpretations. For example, Paul Collaer (1974) recognizes the shape of an animal: pangolin, anteater, or bird. A concise and factual description (aside from the incorrect maximum length taken from Franz Hernsheim) is given by Hans Fischer (1958):
A wooden block ranging from 20 cm to 2 m in length (Hernsheim 106), averaging around 60 cm, is provided with three incisions in such a way that three rubbing surfaces are created over cavities open on both sides. ... The friction wood is placed longitudinally in front of the body on the ground, while the palms of the hands, rubbed with resin, are moved over the rubbing surfaces.
The essential outer form, which has nothing to do with all interpretations, is missing here.[19]
Despite all derivations of names from birds and corresponding interpretations, it is hardly possible to recognize a bird shape in this particular form, which can hardly be altered if the desired sound is to be produced. Some authors wanted to recognize further animals such as a turtle or a pig lying on its back with a trunk, two pairs of legs, and a tail in the friction wood.[20]
The production of friction wood was subject to similar rules as with the Malanggan figures and took place in secret outside the village, which is why there are no reports on the production process and the tools used. According to the outer form, the cavities are carved out and smoothed. Only then are the tongues exposed through a cut. Now the first acoustic test can take place. Further processing of the tongues serves to achieve the desired sound. The woodcarvers themselves were subject to certain behaviors and dietary regulations during production. In the beginning, students had to observe for a specified period and then precisely mimic the working method of their master.[21]
Modern Versions
In 1997, José le Piez The Arbrasson
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr, 1987, p. 154
- ^ Waldemar Stöhr, 1987, pp. 163, 173f
- ^ Gerhard Peekel: The Ancestral Images of North New Mecklenburg. A Critical and Positive Study. In: Anthropos, Volume 21, Issue 5/6, September–December 1926, pp. 806–824, here p. 807
- ^ Hermann Justus Braunholtz: An Ancestral Figure from New Ireland. In: Man, No. 148, December 1927, pp. 217–219, here p. 218
- ^ Sibyl Marcuse: A Survey of Musical Instruments. Harper & Row, New York 1975, p. 107
- ^ Davide Domenici: The wandering “Leg of an Indian King”. The cultural biography of a friction idiophone now in the Pigorini Museum in Rome, Italy. In: Journal de la Société des américanistes, Volume 102, No. 1, 2016, pp. 79–104, here p. 93
- ^ Edgardo Civallero: Turtle shells in traditional Latin American music. Wayrachaki editora, Bogota 2021, pp. 1–30
- ^ Franz Hernsheim: Südsee-Erinnerungen (1875–1880). A. Hofmann & Comp., Berlin 1883, p. 106
- ^ Otto Finsch: Südseearbeiten: Gewerbe- und Kunstfleiss, Tauschmittel und „Geld“ der Eingeborenen auf Grundlage der Rohstoffe und der geographischen Verbreitung. L. Friederichsen & Co., Hamburg 1914, p. 542, footnote 3
- ^ Otto Finsch: Ethnologische Erfahrungen und Belegstücke aus der Südsee. Beschreibender Katalog einer Sammlung im K.K. Naturhistorischen Hofmuseum in Wien. Alfred Hölder, Vienna 1893, pp. 58, 637
- ^ Paul Collaer: Oceania. In: Heinrich Besseler, Max Schneider (Eds.): History of Music in Pictures. Volume I: Music Ethnology. Delivery 1. 2nd edition. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1974, p. 104
- ^ Hans Oesch: Non-European Music. Part 2. (Carl Dahlhaus, Hermann Danuser (Eds.): New Handbook of Musicology, Volume 9) Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1987, p. 369
- ^ Frances Morris: Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments. Volume 2: Oceania and America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1914, p. 44
- ^ George W. Andrews: The American History and Encyclopedia of Music: Musical Instruments. Irving Squire, New York 1910, pp. 52f, 155
- ^ Curt Sachs: Reallexikon der Musikinstrumente. Verlag von Julius Bard, Berlin 1913, pp. 234f, s.v. “kulepa ganez”
- ^ Sibyl Marcuse: Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary. A complete, authoritative encyclopedia of instruments throughout the world. (Doubleday, New York 1964) Country Life Limited, London 1966, p. 369; referring to Hans Fischer, 1958, p. 26 there
- ^ Jaap Kunst: A Study on Papuan Music. The Netherlands East Indies Committee for Scientific Research, Weltevreden 1931; reprint in: Music in New Guinea. Three Studies. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1967, p. 43, Fig. 17 on p. 60
- ^ Augustin Krämer, 1925, p. 56
- ^ Gerald Florian Messner, 1980, p. 239
- ^ Curt Sachs considers a symbolic relationship of the lounuat to the pig instead of the hornbill more likely because of the pig feast during the funeral ritual, see: Curt Sachs: Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente. (Berlin 1928) Reprint: Frits A. M. Knuf, Hilversum 1965, p. 90f, s.v. “Friction wood”
- ^ Gerald Florian Messner, 1980, pp. 250–252