Healing power of the Seas

When the harvest is good, we use to carry a large piece of ice. The man carries it on his back and from the snowy mountains takes it to the sea; there, he puts it down, talks to it, thanks the sea for the process and asks for a renewal that prevents the lack of water. This is a millenary tradition in many communities from the Andes.

The first thing given to this world by the god Wiracocha was the sea, from where he came himself. In our cosmovision, that is where all beings are born, the origin of life itself. The sound of nature and seas is healing and mantric, the rhythm of the waves echoes the sound of the cosmos, of the primitiveness of our origin as beings, both human and animal. We are reminded of how little we are by the sound of the sea: endlessly little compared to its greatness, but great in spirit at the same time. Its healing and reflexive power is vital to the harmonizing between the human and the natural. We, Andean men, respectfully call it MAMACOCHA –mother of all waters, in Quechua.

Passing on,
Emilio Urbay
Musician
Peru

The Puff or "Pukuy" and the Wind Instruments



Hi, Emilio
So nice to meet you here, thanks for your note! I like reading about your flutes & music!!
Best wishes,
Pamela
Musician
New York-USA


Dear sister Pamela:

The puff or “pukuy” is of the utmost importance in our towns: the wind or “wayra” blows to bring us to life; it also blows about the sea and the mountains, and when it comes across a reed (and its hollow stem) blows through it making it sound. When the wind blows between the trees, it plays their very leaves: that is music itself, in our opinion. And our respect towards the wind doesn’t just show by playing the antaras, quenas and other wind instruments nicely; it also shows when we blow through the coca and tobacco leaves ourselves, before they are used for any purpose. For that and many other reasons, the act of blowing is a revered one –a communion that unifies all things.

Entertainment, celebration, healing, achieving high levels of conscience, paying our debts to the ceremonial temples (huacas) –and to the sacred Andean mountains or “apus”--, are but some of the reasons why we puff and play.

Some brothers and sisters among us labour the land, so our native plants, such as the potato, the coca plant, the maca, the quinua, stay with us for many more years. Others, like the jampis, protect, cultivate, teach, and heal with entheogenic and medicine plants. And there are still others who raise llamas, alpacas, guanacos, cuyes and other animals.

In my particular case, I am a musician, and my mission is to build instruments and to make music with them, as in many other individual cases they have to work the land or to raise animals. It is my mission in life: not just my vocation, but also, and beyond that, something i was literally born to do –and, if the gods let me, something I will keep doing after I am gone.

I am a builder of quenas and antaras (or pan flutes, as they are called abroad), not only made of reed and bamboo, or mud and clay; i also make them of the feathers and bones of the sea birds, pelicans and condors dead in natural circumstances, and of other animals like the llamas and alpacas, dead of a natural death, too. I thank them, treat them like my brothers, and promise to them I will carry their message now that they are gone. The instruments I build are replicas identical to their Prehispanic models. I produce the very same sounds that were listened to so many thousands of years ago, and bring them to our time. It is difficult to find the precise notes by the tuning of the instruments; for instance, the natural or chromatic scales, which are microtonal. Exactly as it was made in the ancient times, I orchestrate this music out of these instruments, which are so millenary (circa 1500 years ago, at least) that there is no community or town that knows anything about their performance anymore –unlike the quenas, zampoñas or sikus, which are known in the traditions of many of today’s Andean societies.

The message carried by the instruments I build is a kind of link between us and the ancient sounds produced by our ancestors thousands of years ago: a message from wise, healthy people. My work is also about regaining and meeting again our own genetic past, to know and understand that we are human beings carrying a light around the world –or Alpa-mama or Mother Earth--, and the Pacha-mama or cosmos.

Regards and good vibrations...

Emilio
Passing on,
Emilio Urbay
Musician