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The Search for the Sound of the Putorino: “Me Te Waie Utuutu Ana”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Richard Nunns  and
Allan Thomas
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Extract

The noted New Zealand Maori authority Te Rangi Hiroa declared that the rich heritage of traditional instruments was now silent, they were no longer played, they would be ‘forever mute'(Buck 1949:270). Among the predominant flutes and trumpets of this instrumentarium were voice modifiers (jews harp, mouth bow), whizzers and whirlers, and percussion (rattlers, castanets, gong, and other ‘found’ instruments). Most enigmatic of all was the pūtωrino, the so-called bugle-flute, perhaps unique in the world's instruments, a combination of three instruments—flute, trumpet and voice modifier. A description of the sound of this instrument 'Me te wai e utuutu ana' (like water ‘bubbling into a calabash held under the surface of the water’ Anderson 1934: 275) provides our title, and one of the signposts in the revival of the pūtωrino.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 37 , 2005 , pp. 69 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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Footnotes

1

‘Nukunuku said the sound [of the pūtωrino] was likened to the bubbling of water into a calabash held under the surface as is seen in the saying “Me te wai e utuutu ana“’ (Andersen 1934:275).

References

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