4. Traditional Musical Instruments in Dutch New Guinea

Kunst classified traditional instrumental music in Netherlands New Guinea into four main groups. First, idiophones; second, membranophones; third, chordophones; and, fourth, aerophones. The areas from which these instruments originated were also mentioned.

Idiophones

This group includes the music whose source is from its own body. There are five types of idiophones discovered in Dutch New Guinea:

1. Musical instruments that produce rattles. They are made of dried fruits hanging like small mangoes tied to a stem or stick; they are also made of some shells connected through a piece of thin string to another piece of string tied to the body. The shells rattles when a person wearing them probably dances. Origin: Sentani Lake and Humboldt Bay.
2. Bell made of a Conus shell; its tongue is usually made of a boar's tusk. Origin: Humboldt Bay.
3. Sounding block, it resembles a prow shaped like a sheath with an oblong-like hole in the middle. Origin: Humboldt Bay.
4. Throwing block or thunder block, it resembles a fetus lying flat in the womb with arms and legs folded inward, facing upward. Origin: Humboldt Bay.
5. Jewish harp, made of the bark of a palm tree or of a piece of bamboo, resembles a biconvex bamboo comb with three, long, pointed teeth with slots in between and with a sharp and pointed end; played with the mouth. Origins: Humboldt Bay and Sarmi.

Membranophones

This group consists of musical instruments whose sources of sounds are from membranes. There are also five types of membranophones discovered in Netherlands New Guinea:

1. Globes drum, the larger upper part resembles a rather elongated liqueur glass with a handle, its shorter "neck" is similar to the base of the liqueur glass. Origins: Waropen Coast and Yappen.
2. Transitional form between goblet and cylindrical drums; the end beaten is covered with dried animal hide. Origin: Waropen Coast.
3. Thin and long bamboo (buluh) drum, the round part beaten at one end has narrow parallel lines and makes the drum look like the gill of a mushroom. Origin: Humboldt Bay.
4. Two-legged drum in the form of an inverted V. Both legs support the drum that has a partly round handle, with the beaten dried hide flat on one of its end, looks round outward and has curved, parallel lines along its side, the hollow trunk of the drum has motifs. Origin: Sentani Lake.
5. Hour-glass drum with a round handle holding the upper and lower parts at its neck. The upper end where the dried hide is stuck is covered with the cap-like shape of a mushroom that has very narrow, curved, parallel lines, making it resemble a flat mushroom with its gill around its cap. The handle and the upper part starting from the neck are very much decorated with local motifs; the lower part starting from the neck is sparsely decorated with a different motif.

Chordophones

This group of musical instruments produce their sounds from their strings. Not a single chordophone from Dutch New Guinea was noted down by Kunst except three types from Papua New Guinea during its colonial period. The self-made ukulele, contra bass, and large four-string guitar played, particularly, in the rural areas in Dutch New Guinea and even in present-day Papua and West Papua do belong to chordophones. Kunst, however, did not mention them in his book probably because they are not original products but are influenced by Western culture.

Aerophones

This group of musical instruments use air as its source of sound. There are ten types discovered in Netherlands New Guinea:

1. End-blown wooden trumpet similar to a large Sprite bottle whose neck resembles an inverted Christmas bell with the mouthpiece at its top. The part below the neck is ornamented with certain motifs. Origins: Arso and Sentani Lake.
2. Wooden trumpet with its mouthpiece near one end and blown from one side; the part of the mouthpiece is carved into a human head with a slightly slanted but pointed forehead; the back part of this hollow trunk shows a square handle resembling an ear, its lower part or base has a large round whole. Origins: Tobati, Hollandia.
3. Thin bamboo flute with large-spaced joints with a round mouthpiece at one of its end, decorated slightly below it with some motifs. Origin: Saberi.
4. End-blown conch trumpet from the Waropen Coast.
5. Large side-blown conch trumpet, also from the Waropen Coast.
6. Ocarina made of a small, hollow coconut shell with the open mouth shape of a fish carved at one end, a round hole resembling the eye of a fish near its upper middle, and a small hole at its other end through which a rope is attached for holding it. Origin: south coast of Dutch New Guinea.
7. Transverse flute, carved with various motifs, with a round, u-shaped, or square hole near, in the middle, or slightly below one of its end. One of its end is closed or open. The upper part looks similar to the sharp metal point of a spear. Origins: Humboldt Bay and northern coast (Beko, Arso, Waabe, Tobati, Kaptiau).
8. Short bamboo (with narrow-spaced joints) flute, open at both sides, with its mouthpiece carved slightly closer to the lower end, decorated with various motifs. Origin: north coast.
9. Vertical thin bamboo flute without a finger hole on its side; instead, it has a largely flat cut hole with the rest of the outer layer sticking upward and the other end closed. Origin: north coast (Nacheibe, Ujang, and Mande).
10. Five-row pan pipe consisting of five thin bamboos of different lengths tied near the upper end and serving as mouthpieces with a piece of rope; the lower end of each bamboo is cut sideways to get an oval shape hole. Origin: Merauke.

Do They Still Exist?

Various types of the tifa, the native drums, are still used. In spite of this, they may not be as many as they have been before. The increasingly dominant influence of Western music has reduced their social roles.

Do other traditional musical instruments Kunst mentioned still exist? No recent research seems to answer this question.

If they are lost, is there anybody interested in reviving them? Your accomplishment will not only be noted down and remembered. Hopefully, it will also draw the attention of other professional musicians to develop them into modern musical instruments which can enter the world music of this century.