The whistles of the Ava people

The Ava, a Guarani-speaking people of the Bolivian and Argentine lowlands, preserved a complex musical tradition shaped by Amazonian, Arawak, Andean, and colonial influences despite centuries of warfare, displacement, and missionary intervention. Closely tied to rituals such as the aréte guásu, their musical heritage includes drums, flutes, trumpets, whistles, idiophones, and the singular turumi violin, all generally handcrafted by the performers themselves and embedded in ceremonial, social, and symbolic practices linking music, dance, memory, sexuality, warfare, and relations between the living and the dead.

The Ava used at least two whistles, which appear to be obsolete today. Perhaps the best known (and most debated) was the serére, senéne, or jocüro. Basically, it consists of a wooden strip with a single hole drilled through it, open at both ends. By blowing into the proximal end, as if it were a panpipe, and covering and uncovering the distal end with a finger, two notes are produced.

Numerous authors describe the aerophone as a long, angular whistle made of the hardwood of the igüirayepiro or algarrobilla tree and adorned with carved figures and symbols, which men would play both at celebrations and in battles. The construction techniques, the type of wood used, the ornamentation, and the way the Ava instrument is played are similar to those of the jant'arki, a whistle of the neighboring Calcha people of the Bolivian highlands.

The other whistle, called yvýra mímby, was, as its name indicates, a "wooden flute": circular, flat, made of igüirayepíro wood, with three holes, profusely decorated, and played only by men. Some authors have referred to it as naseré. They were blown both at festivals and in war; during armed conflicts, in addition to these whistles, trumpets and horns were also played.

More information about these sound artifacts can be found in the free-access digital book Musical instruments of the Ava people, accessible through the "Digital books on music. Series 1" section.