Flute Item Number: 424/7 from the MOA: University of British Columbia

Description

Pipe made of a hollow, cylindrical pieces of wood with a large hole for the mouth piece and an oval shape cut-out bowl at the top. The pipe is bound with pieces of twine that are wrapped in a way to create an x-like pattern. Hanging from the end is a piece of twisted fibre rope. From the mouth end hangs two sets of two pieces of twine along with orange, brown and black coloured feathers. Each feather is topped with a half piece of black seed(?) next to a black or grey glass bead.

Narrative

This object came to the museum without provenance, but was identified as “Mebêngôkre (Kayapo)” through formal comparison with similar objects. Although they use the name Kayapo in international relations, the 22 communities that lived along the Iriri, Bacajá and Fresco rivers, and other tributaries of the Xingu, prefer to call themselves Mebêngôkre or “men from the water.”