The Sounds of the Transcendental Flight

Abstract

The reconstructed pre-Hispanic tuning modules of the Huari tradition in correspondence with the specific unit of measurement Pichqa-tawa (Gudemos 2009b, 2011a) were without doubt product of a skilled labour applied to the construction of objects with sonorous function. Securely this skilled labour also responded to a skilled demand, possibly ceremonial. In fact, in the Middle Horizon, with the Huari expansion, a recurrent iconographical theme of probable south-coastal Peru tradition appears. This theme is strongly associated with ceremonial activities and the ecstatic shamanic flights (Berenguer 1987, Reichel Dolmatoff 1988, Olsen 2005, between other). Its central motif is a personage, apparently of high rank, in ventral position with his legs and head uphold. Generally, in the Recuay, Chincha and Huari iconographies this personage blows a short tubular notch flute with three or four front orifices, just like the Huari flutes analyzed in our research. This article deals with the relationship between these ceremonial practices, the existence of a skilled musical demand-production and the analyzed Huari bone flutes.