plucked musical bow, gáwa

Plucked musical bow system of the Huli people in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, described in Pugh-Kitingan (1977, 1982 and 1984). The instrument itself (gáwa in Huli) is a two-stringed, orally resonated musical bow held against the teeth; it is strummed with a plectrum, and the inner string is periodically stopped with the thumb of the opposing hand (Pugh-Kitingan 1977:220). The language is tonal, with “three contrastive tone-patterns: low-rising, high-falling, and mid-level” (1984:95). The surrogate system uses two mechanisms to encode speech. Vowels and consonants are encoded articulatorily: “the gáwa player articulates verses by using the oral cavity to reshape the sound generated by the external instrument, while the vocal cords remain silent” (98). Since the language lacks labiodental and interdental consonants, consonant articulation is relatively unimpeded by the instrument, and vowel articulation is easily distinguishable in the amplified harmonics of the instrument (1977:210). Linguistic tone is encoded through variations in the pitch of the gáwa’s inner string. When played open, the inner string is tuned about four semitones higher than the outer one; when stopped with the thumb, the inner string rises roughly another semitone. Transitions from the open (low) to stopped (high) position correspond with rising tones in the language, the opposite being true for falling tones; mid-level tones may correspond to sections that maintain the previous pitch level (1984:98). Sentence-final falling intonation is also reproduced (98). Women and men both use the system. Content includes courtship and the recitation of Huli poetry.

Pugh-Kitingan, J. (1977). Huli Language and Instrumental Performance. Ethnomusicology, 21(2), 205. https://doi.org/10.2307/850944,Pugh-Kitingan, J. (1982). Language communication and instrumental music in Papua New Guinea; Comments on Tse Huli and Samberigi Cases. Musicology Australia, 7(1), 104–119.,Pugh-Kitingan, J. (1984). Speech-tone realisation in Huli music. na.