Conch Calls Into the Anthropocene: Pututus As Instruments of Human-Environmental Relations at Monumental Chaviń

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Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Volume 5 Number 2 Music, Sound, and the Aurality of the Environment in the Anthropocene: Spiritual and Article 4 Religious Perspectives

2019

Conch Calls into the Anthropocene: Pututus as Instruments of Human-Environmental Relations at Monumental Chaviń

Miriam A. Kolar Amherst College

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Recommended Citation Kolar, Miriam A. (2019) "Conch Calls into the Anthropocene: Pututus as Instruments of Human- Environmental Relations at Monumental Chavin,́ " Yale Journal of Music & Religion: Vol. 5: No. 2, Article 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1151

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Cover Page Footnote My fieldwork at Chavín has been conducted as a researcher formally associated with the Programa de Investigacioń Arqueologicá y Conservacioń Chaviń de Huantaŕ (PIACCdH -- Chavín de Huántar Archaeology and Conservation Research Program), directed by Dr. John W. Rick with various Peruvian co- directors, authorized by the Ministerio de Cultura del Perú (Peruvian Ministry of Culture). Many thanks to my collaborators and supporters in this long-term investigation. My 2016-17 Weatherhead Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM, contributed significantly ot the development of this work.

This article is available in Yale Journal of Music & Religion: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr/vol5/iss2/4 Conch Calls into the Anthropocene Pututus as Instruments of Human-Environmental Relations at Monumental Chavín de Huántar Miriam A. Kolar

Pututus (conch-shell musical horns) are ing the Anthropocene. I argue that known in the Andes as annunciatory devices Chavín’s site-excavated Strombus pututus enabling their players to call across long were tools for ritual communication distances. However, the sonic and gestural that link diverse ecologies with human versatility possible in pututu performance interventions toward environmental constitutes dynamical evidence for control. Intrinsic to site ritual, the Chavín nuanced archaeological interpretations of pututus were pivotal in the expression these multifaceted and ritually associated of human-ecological (re)positionings. instruments. Pututus were documented Archaeological engagement of both sonic in texts with drawings created during the and environmental concerns is at stake in Spanish conquest and colonization of the my exploration of human-environmental Andes, and intact shell horns have been interdynamics and their conceptualization, excavated from monumental architecture rooted in the material culture of in Perú preceding the Inca by more than monumental Chavín and its setting. The two millennia. At the Andean Formative human-environmental positionality of center at Chavín de Huántar, Perú, whose Chavín’s monumental architecture relates well-preserved ceremonial complex was to the ecological materiality of pututus active during the first millennium b.c.e., in their anthropic transposition from pututus were depicted in stone and on marine animal to (super)human vocal decorated ceramics. To date, 21 intact transformer and proxy: a technology of shell horns have been excavated at this air transformation and wind interaction as UNESCO World Heritage site. The use- well as sound production. Environmental worn, identity-projecting, and symbolically interventions via Chavín architecture notched Chavín pututus provide physical and performance using these multimodal and acoustical evidence for functional instruments manifest strategic realizations interpretations of a multimodal ritual of human dominance while communicating communication technology. In this article, negotiation within its flow-directing I take a cross-disciplinary approach to ritualscape. The Chavín pututus harbor examine the Chavín pututus with respect to cosmological significance whose details site archaeology and its particular Andean are mired in the uncertainty of archaeology, highland setting, exploring the intersection yet whose materiality conveys reference of their materiality and dynamical potential, and function: they are communication in context. instruments that interrelate humans Chavín’s built environment and and ecosystems. In the ancient Andes, associated materials evince past strategies the Chavín pututus functioned as ritual for environmental negotiations that technologies for humans asserting agency foreshadow present-day discourse regard- in ordering their cosmos.

22 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) Foreshadowing the Anthropocene in the relevance to a theme well established Andean Formative Period in archaeology. Patterns of human– A vantage recently hailed as the environmental relationships, especially Anthropocene1 frames my archaeological as site-specific or regional evidence, are case study of ritual sonics at monumental extrapolated diachronically in archaeological Chavín de Huántar. Human-environmental interpretation to explain social shifts and relations were articulated in the material movements of people. Anthropological culture of this Andean gathering center archaeology traces human responses to active 3,000 years ago, epitomized by environmental factors and ecological symbolically potent sound-producing dynamics, primarily through studies of conch shells. In an unorthodox cross- cultural materials and human remains. disciplinary exploration that leverages Material culture offers durable traces of past acoustical science and performance understandings of human–environmental study, I interrelate the following topics: relationships that can only be accessed sonic communication, music making, inferentially, from evidential convergence. religious and ritual practices, experimental Recent, globally scaled discussion and experiential archaeology, human– about human–environmental relationships environmental interactions, and ecological reinforces the relevance of anthropologically conceptualizations. My study draws on focused environmental science. Evaluation twelve years of archaeological research and of the Anthropocene requires scrutiny eight seasons of archaeoacoustical and music not only of its proposed mechanics from archaeology fieldwork I have conducted an Earth-system perspective, but of the at Chavín to reconstruct culture-making factors that drive and enable humans to processes and infer social structures from configure environments, from localized remnant materials in site-contextualized placemaking to broader ecosystemic assemblage. Dynamical analyses of manipulations. Ecological changes due to archaeological materials in the context of human activities have been identified much physical settings reveal the importance of earlier than commonly cited markers of the sonic technologies and musical expression Anthropocene, such as industrialization. to transcendental world-building in the A recent study leveraged data science prehistorical “ritualscape”2 at Chavín. techniques to cross-compare regional Archaeological engagement takes knowledge from over 250 archaeologists diverse forms, from expert scrutiny of with land-use expertise, demonstrating that physical materials to public consumption humans effected global ecological changes of interpretative reconstructions. Present by at least 3,000 years ago, and plausibly issues influence our hindsight; ideologies over the past 10,000 years. This project is and societal preoccupations drive framed as research “toward the common archaeological interpretations. In doing goal of understanding early land use as a archaeology, we construct narratives from driver of long-term global environmental material fragments of past lives, relevant changes across the Earth system, including to our own situations. Discourse regarding changes in climate.”3 In contrast, geologists human-environmental relations with have argued that past climatic events respect to climate change brings heightened demonstrated stratigraphically were

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 23 not driven by humans, albeit human- and cultural materials. Although sound influencing.4 Across fields, debates itself cannot be preserved, things that continue. The complementary study of past make and shape sound persist and can human dealings with their environmental be evaluated in terms of their acoustical relationality requires local specificity, and features and psychoacoustical correlates. produces knowledge on the scale of human Sound-producing instruments enable experience, my focus here. humans to make sound, produce visual Zooming in on the material culture gestures, and articulate environmental of particular archaeological sites entails settings and social proxemics, among detailed examinations that expose evidence other anthropologically significant for past humans’ conceptualizations of functions. Static material culture stands ecological relationships. A shift of research as evidence of human activities in the perspective from numerically focused data distant past, including the communication science to humanistic anthropology relates of cosmological beliefs through intangible human–environmental trends and climatic culture, expressive actions, and processes events to individual experience and social that involve physical materials and places.9 structures, on local and regional scales. A “Material engagement,” archaeologist synchronic approach—here, examining the Colin Renfrew has observed, “considers dynamical potential and functionality of the processes by which human individuals site-contextualized cultural materials in and communities engage with the one archaeological case study—can reveal material world through actions that have humans’ calculated ecological interventions simultaneously a material reality and a toward anthropic re-positioning in a particu- cognitive or intelligent component.”10 In lar place and within a specific timeframe. prehistorical archaeology, we can only trace Archaeological materials foreshadow the experiential concerns through expressions diverse human–environmental conversations in materials and their correlates in material at present, from scientific discourse on the dynamics, substantiating our inferences Anthropocene to its ideological extension in through evidential corroborations. the postmodern transhumanist proposition Expressions of human–environmental that human agency will transcend itself.5 and intrahuman relationships that are Diverse forms of evidence indicate embedded in archaeological materials that sonic technologies were a crucial may be revealed or suggested through component of “alternative” world-building6 the investigation of human-material both rooted in and enforced by human– interaction affordances, through either environmental positioning at the Andean experiments11 or models.12 In the case Formative ceremonial center at Chavín de of material sonics, archaeoacoustical Huántar.7 An intangible cultural substrate, techniques based on acoustical and sound is both a dynamical informant and auditory science facilitate physics-based a human communication medium that reconstructions of sound from material can be leveraged in explicit and subversive culture and empirically relevant analyses.13 ways8 to facilitate relationships between In its fundamental relationship with humans and environmental constituents, diverse forms of communication, sound— among people, and between individuals or its absence, silence—is salient to reli-

24 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) gious performance.14 Sonic dynamics and funneled water from the converging would have been pivotal to ritual at the Wacheqsa River into it through a complex monumental Andean Formative center system of stone-lined canals. Several at Chavín de Huántar, especially to thousand meters of canals, with patterns of communicate nonverbally.15 A massive associated access stairways and architectural human intervention in a geologically and hydraulic manipulations, suggest elaborate climatically turbulent Andean mountain water ritual, including plentiful sacrificing setting,16 the seismically engineered stone- of finely constructed, hand-burnished and and-earthen-mortar architecture of this relief-sculpted ceramics.18 The buildings supposed religious complex has persisted have withstood repeated earthquakes and since its development over several hundred alluvial injection, with evidence of a retrofit years during the first millenniumb.c.e . repair associated with the end of monu- Chavín’s builders transposed materials and mental occupation.19 Through innovative structures from its sierran environment17 architectonic and hydraulic engineering,20 in flow-controlling forms—an interpretative Chavín evinces its builders’ awareness of paradigm I propose and explore in this their role as risk-managing constructors21 article. Extending from the bedrock of a of a “place apart,”22 activated in ritual as narrow highland valley, Chavín architecture “an intentionally constructed alternative (see Fig. 1) marks and amplifies the con- reality”23 where people from diverse sites vergence of two rivers via subterranean and regions congregated to support an engineering that diverted the Mosna River experientially distinct ideological system.

Figure 1: Monumental stone-and-earthen-mortar architecture of the UNESCO World Heritage site at Chavín de Huántar, Perú, as it appeared during the sierran rainy season a few years ago. During monumental occupation, building facades were lined with sculptural anthro-zoomorphic tenon heads (cabezas clavas in Spanish), with polished stone surface treatments on some areas, including the so-called Black and White Staircase in the right lower corner of this photo taken from southeast of Building A, with the countersunk, square-shaped Plaza Mayor in the foreground. Photo by José Luis Cruzado Coronel.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 25 Social structuring devices operational potential and multimodal materiality of to Chavín’s ritual machinery included these pututus suggests ritual uses that far multisensory communication technologies exceed normative assumptions about conch- via architecture and objects.24 Archaeo- shell horns in western scholarship. ethnomusicological evidence at Chavín At Andean Formative Chavín, pututus converges on one particular form of sound- were a specifically procured, crafted, and producing instrument, the Strombus marine- emplaced communication technology, shell musical horn,25 the only definitive transported far from the ocean to this soundproducer both site-excavated26 and remote highland site. These conch-shell graphically depicted from its monumental horns were engineered and skill-requisite epoch, in more than a century of site ritual instruments with social, religious, archaeology (see Fig. 2).27 The presence musical, and conceptual implications. and plentiful depictions of these specifically Disentangling these factors and crafted and engraved marine-shell “natural identifying specific symbolical meanings horns,” known in the Andes as pututus, requires knowledge beyond what is imply specific environmental associations archaeologically recoverable. However, and manipulations at a sierran site evaluating relationships among forms of climatically distinct from their distant ocean archaeological evidence—especially site- source. Material-dynamical explorations of instrument dynamical interrelationships, these instruments in site settings produce for realistic use interpretation of these functional information relevant to the pututus—produces nuanced assessments significance of pututus at Chavín. Relating of plausibility. Reframing the discussion diverse forms of Chavín archaeological of Chavín ritual via exploration of its evidence with the sonic performance communication technologies injects new,

Figure 2: Chavín pututus on display at the Museo Nacional Chavín (left) and another in its 2001 excavation context (right). Photos by José Luis Cruzado Coronel and John Rick / Programa de Investigación Arqueológica y Conservación Chavin de Huantar (PIACCdH). Composite figure previously published in article by Kolar,Acoustics Today (14/4: 29; Fig. 1).

26 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) relevant questions into the study of human– of Ancash’s Callejón de Conchukos, a environmental relations in the ancient narrow valley between the glacial peaks of Andes. Although the specific cosmological the Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains) significance of these pututus to Formative and the dark escarpments of the Cordillera Chavín’s human population cannot be Negra (Black Mountains). Two mountain known, in their materiality and ritual ranges and at least twelve days’ journey situation, these prominent instruments by foot from the ocean, Chavín’s sierran convey human-ecological concerns across environment would have been foreign to millennia. marine animals and their artifact shells.33 Canonical and effective for commu- Sonic Contextualization of the nicating across Andean valleys, the iconic Chavín Pututus: Beyond Signs and conch call—its ubiquitously reproduced, Signaling Instruments powerful sounding tone—is merely one “A huaca can be defined as a thing (object, manner of performing a pututu. An feature on the landscape, water source, extensive range of expressive techniques, and even human remains) that has a including the projection of breath and potential or an actual force recognized human vocalizations, percussive soundings by Andean peoples. A huaca in this sense that enable rhythmic articulation, flutter- acquires a relationship between humans tonguing, and diverse exploratory ways of 28 that must be kept in equilibrium.” making sound34 have been observed in use A Chavín pututu may be best understood by living musicians in the Andes. Such a as a portable and potent huaca,29 having range of soundings makes this instrument transcended the finite life of a gastropod useful across distinct acoustical settings, within a marine ecosystem and entered an and for communication purposes beyond existence of prolonged objectification as a signaling outdoors. Practices I reference ritual object and instrument of cosmological here have been documented in Chavín relations in the Andes.30 A physically pututu research with master musician and inscribed, versatile soundproducer and sound healer Tito La Rosa,35 in fieldwork vocal extension for its performers, a Chavín collaborations with pututu performers pututu can be wielded by a skilled performer from diverse backgrounds, observations of to produce myriad sonic expressions, in pututus in Peruvian public events, in a new addition to its most iconic voicings.31 ethno-archaeomusicological study about In ritual use contexts, the sounding of Chavín sound-producing instruments in a Chavín pututu would have enacted a collaboration with Andean performers physical and symbolic relationship between having varied musical backgrounds,36 and in the instrument and its performer, as well as highland ceremonies in rural Hatun Q’ero as those who less directly sensed its activation.32 documented by Peruvian ethnomusicologist Notoriously, pututus were sounded around Martha Paola Acosta-Díaz.37 Experimental and within the architectonic huaca that is performance demonstrates the sonic and a stone-and-earthen-mortar imposition gestural possibilities that these instruments onto Andean bedrock, the monumental offer, enabling the evaluation of their archaeological center at Chavín de Huántar. specific functionality in associated arch- Chavín is located in the Peruvian department aeological settings. Observational studies

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 27 of instrument use provide an empirical their physical-mechanical features with counter to the assumption of performance site materials and acoustical settings to practices on the basis of theory or music circumscribe site-relevant performance history. Demonstrated practices may be techniques and sonic efficacies. This is inferred pertinent to Chavín depending archaeological contextualization of musi- on their functionality within acoustical cal/sound production, from a settings of the site, and with respect to material-functional perspective; aware other material factors. of, and mediating, anachronistic biases. Chavín’s well-preserved architecture Human creativity tends to disrupt enables experimental explorations of norms and exceed rather than conform sound-production possibilities, based to expectations; therefore, the role of on mechanics, using both site-excavated experimental archaeology within an soundproducers and modern replicas. In archaeological science paradigm is to tandem, acoustical measurements and assume the human capacity for innovation analyses provide comprehensive and and contextual responsiveness, rather than scientifically repeatable assessments of to reproduce anachronistic knowledge. My the dynamical features of performance study investigates the functional potential contexts and hypothetical conditions of the Chavín pututus with respect to their based on archaeological evidence. Use- material contextual evidence, particularly potential evaluations of archeological their relationship with site spaces, the materials can reveal contextual likelihoods sierran environment, and the larger given converging forms of evidence. Andean sphere of ecological knowledge as Archaeological performance studies can represented in Chavín materials. also be informed by situationally relevant Several common and pervasive ethnological analogy, a basic tool for presumptions about sound and music38 archaeological inference. However, the preface studies of Andean conch horns potential for anachronistic assumption including the Chavín pututus, which have underlies any reconstructive research more frequently been called “trumpets” practice, such as performance testing. in prior archaeological discourse. Given the prehistorical situation of Chavín, Categorically “annunciatory” and some- reconstructions are best grounded in times “musical,” where they appear archaeological materials, with respect to publicly, pututus represent Andean the site’s highland valley setting and what “tradition.” In present-day ceremonial is known of its temporal context. use and heritage reconstructions in Perú, Whether or not specific performance pututus typically serve as a decorative practices would have been preferred at accessory rather than an operational Chavín cannot be known with certitude; element. In these events, their sonic utility however, the work of archaeology is to is limited to convocational functions such evaluate the plausible, and to propose as announcing the presence of important evidentially based interpretations that in figures, and cultivating ambiance.39 If not part, define context. Therefore, starting performed briefly as a symbolic gesture by from the greatest range of sounding a leader, pututu performers are musicians potential of the Chavín pututus, I relate who serve ancillary roles: pututus provide

28 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) accompaniment or emphasis in ceremonial ambience rather than communication activities in which nonverbal soundmaking technologies. Following archaeometric is not prioritized. Defining the pututu as an methods, my site-contextualized analyses announcing device across archaeological reveal material and functional factors that and music archaeology literature has greatly expand estimations of pututus’ normalized a concept that can be traced expressive performance potential, relevant to historicized Inca iconicism of the to the use of pututus for both sound recent past,40 rather than developed from production and other forms of ritual Chavín archaeology and knowledge of communication at Chavín.42 Examining the sounding mechanics of these pre-Inca, these pututus as mediating tools—ritually site-excavated instruments. In tandem, significant objects with particular visual- reproducing European musicological and symbolic significance as well as sonic present-day commercial paradigms to functionality: multimodal communication differentiate Chavín “musicians” from technologies—reveals overlooked evidence other ritual actors—as well as assuming for Chavín’s ritualscape and its multifaceted an accompaniment rather than integral positionings of human–environmental model for ritual sonics—has reinforced relations. Only through a dynamical and an archaeologically unsubstantiated multimodal understanding of the pututus model of prehistorical pututu players at Chavín can we make appropriately site- as subservient to more powerful contextualized inferences regarding their figures. Identifying and dropping such cosmological relevance and significance. anachronistic presumptions—and instead A material-dynamical investigation of exploring the Chavín pututus as site- pututus at Chavín contributes functional situating archaeological materials, in knowledge that is missing from the dynamical relationship with their settings— literature on pututus and musical re-engages the potent sonic materiality of instruments in the ancient Andes, with these multifaceted ritual instruments. implications for heritage representations Andean archaeological and heritage and historical interpretations, as well as discourse reinforces the obvious Chavín archaeology. characteristics of conch-shell horns— The ubiquitous and limiting announce- foremost, their powerful, tonal projection, ment paradigm for pututus appears to and less frequently, their essential constrain present-day Peruvian usage of relationship with water. In a compre- conch-shell horns in public events and hensive pan-Andean survey of pre-Hispanic ceremonies, and perhaps more broadly trumpets, Andean music archaeologist across South America. A signifier of Andean Mónica Gudemos has asserted that, heritage, pututus invoke indigeneity; parallel to their powerful iconic sounding, their historical presence is dominated by pututus have long symbolized wealth and references to the broadly disseminated power.41 Non-archaeoacoustical discussion drawings of Felipe Guamán Poma de about the Chavín pututus has emphasized Ayala, the sixteenth-century chronicler of a few key features of the instruments the Spanish Inca conquest and colonial to support models of Chavín ritual, conflict.43 Both heritage evocations and considering them to be supporters of ritual scholarly treatments have followed these

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 29 historicized definitions. Throughout archaeological program led by Rick with Andean archaeological discourse, where Peruvian archaeologist Augusto Bazán, who pututus are mentioned, they signal, together collaborated on the story. In this announce, and call across distances or call prehistorical narrative aimed at students to attention. Gudemos has identified their and popular audiences, pututu players are sonic power with socio-political status.44 featured across various ceremonial contexts, Music archaeologist Anna Gruszczyńska- performing roles such as greeting the arrival Ziółkowska’s discussion of Inca pututus of visitors, creating loud sounds inside the as “instrumentos de toque”—signaling galleries, and processing with offerings, instruments—implemented in battle indicated via variations of “THUUUUU.”49 and for other projections of political Their feathered costumes mirror depictions power, is commonly referenced; however, of pututu players carved in stone at the site, in the same text, without elaboration, and have been recreated as an accessory for Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska notes that site pageantry, such as the inauguration pututus also carry a magical significance.45 of the 2019 archaeological symposium In a discussion of Moche shell “trumpets” about Chavín, in which feathered pututu that are ceramic skeuomorphs of marine- performers created an ambient drone as shell horns, Gudemos has posed that background to an earth-honoring ceremony for shell horns, “the ability of the player chanted in Quechua. Although integral in allows the production, although limited, these interpretations, pututu performers are of different tones through different lip nonetheless restricted to subservient roles as pressures and breath intensities.”46 In the ritual accessories. What is the evidence for Chavín literature, impressive loudness projecting this particular conceptualization and “noise” as a principal characteristic of pututu performance back to Formative has been cited by both Chavín expert John Chavín, where pututu players are among Rick47 and Andean archaeologist Alexander the most prominently represented figures in Herrera, who has further proposed that its iconography (see Fig. 3, next page)? their function was “signalling key points or Of the non-acoustical, materialist lapses within sequential acts of collective discussions of the Chavín pututus, Andean worship” in a setting in which Herrera archaeological scholar and musicological asserts “we need to imagine their thundering specialist Mélanie Ferras has ventured sound as overlaying that of rushing water farthest interpretatively, in a discussion emanating from underground canals.”48 that “highlight[s] the symbolic aspect Whereas these scenarios are plausible, they of the choice of the pututu as one of the assert as essential only the most canonical central artifacts of ritual practices in Chavin.” understanding of pututu functionality. Arguing against what she characterizes as To date, the most extensive and the “utilitarian” objectification of pututus by multimodally salient archaeological inter- chroniclers of the Inca, Ferras has proposed pretation of pututus within a discussion with poetic precision that the Chavín pututus of Chavín ritual was not developed in a emblematized power through their control typical scholarly text, but in a graphic novel by humans who directed water movement at drawn by Peruvian archaeologist Miguel the power center of Chavín: “these artifacts Ortiz, produced in 2015 by the Chavín are symbolic markers of the origin of

30 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) power in Chavin de Huantar, water and its Chavín themes proposed by Peruvian control… the ingenuity of the pututu comes archaeologist and Chavín specialist Luis from the fact that they not only symbolically G. Lumbreras51 that were also explored in represent the aquatic element, but with the initial Chavín pututu study by Andean their powerful sound, they also manage archaeologist Parker VanValkenburgh, an to materialize it, approaching the natural extensive, non-acoustical characterization sound of water.”50 Ferras’s interpretation of the instruments and the production incorporates material archaeological ev- strategies implied in their creation.52 Ferras idence in situating the importance of has incorporated recent archaeological pututus to Chavín as intrinsic to water findings, including Rick’s developing work ritual, concluding that “the presence of on water ritual,53 in her article associated this concentration of pututus and their with the development of her doctoral many graphic representations take on their dissertation that situates the Chavín full meaning: these artifacts are symbolic pututus with respect to their broader markers of the origin of power in Chavin Andean temporal context.54 By aligning the de Huantar, water and its control…. The pututus’ sound production with aquatic human blowing in the pututu recreates the sonics, both Herrera and Ferras propone sound of the water, appropriates it, and a water-ritual-enhancing role for the thus re-performs the control he exerts on it.” pututus. Herrera emphasizes impressive Ferras’s acknowledgment of the mimetic sonic display, whereas Ferras argues for the potential of pututu sounding is important ceremonial activation of pututus calling for to fostering discourse beyond the calling water, or ritually signaling water through paradigm. In her study, Ferras built upon sonic mimesis.

Figure 3: Pututu-playing personages are positioned as if in procession on human-level facing stones encircling the interior wall of Chavín’s 21-meter-diameter, countersunk Circular Plaza, a ceremonial locus where pututus figure prominently in diverse forms of evidence. Photo by José Luis Cruzado Coronel and Miriam A. Kolar.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 31 The first analytical study concerning mimetic gesture is physically underscored the Chavín pututus focused on their by linear carvings along shell striations, demonstration of Chavín’s interregional- perhaps transforming these pututus’ ism through object morphology and structural indentations into representations iconology.55 In response to their excavation, of wing feathers (see Fig. 4).61 A connection VanValkenburgh, then a student of Rick, between aquatic animals and airborne fauna, conducted an extensive physical study worked into these pututus’ form, mirrors of each shell, tracing iconographical the much-discussed Chavín graphical associations and inferring a range of trope of compositing features from distinct production methods for the prominent living beings to create mythological apical notches (the “Chavín cut” in each superbeings. Pututu wings make explicit shell’s upper lip)56 that characterize the a connection between these instruments pututus excavated from Chavín (and three of air and creatures of the air, capable of similar pututus from a related site, Kuntar flight, suggesting a conceptual figuration Wasi, that Ferras has since considered of soundings as flight; as airborne agency. in more detail).57 Although ergonomic The amalgamated, supernaturally potent (“handgrip”)58 and performance (“en- predatory beings depicted in Chavín hanced frontal vision”)59 functions have iconography have long intrigued scholars. been suggested for this feature, multiple Both Lumbreras and Andeanist Richard functions are not contradictory, and I Burger, who established a chronology agree with Rick that these notches seem to for its ceramics based on his excavations mark the pututus as belonging to Chavín.60 of residential Chavín62—as well as their Ritual notching would be consistent with a Andeanist colleagues Rebeca Carrión kind of initiation rite or other ceremonial Cachot,63 John Rowe,64 Donald Lathrap,65 activity to integrate the pututus (and Henning Bischof,66 Peter G. Roe,67 Gary likely their associated humans) in site Urton,68 and Mary Wiesmantel,69 among ritual, possibly related to interregional others—have emphasized supernatural competition, and/or community building, among plausible functions corroborated by VanValkenburgh’s iconographical situating. To further interpret the notching of the Chavín pututus, I suggest that a particular form follows particular functions, and that multiple purposes are likely, perhaps one initially suggesting another that then became encoded. Here, I pose a sculptural- representational interpretation for the notch, corroborated by audience members of my public presentations about Chavín during post-lecture discussions. The apical notches on the Chavín pututus create the appearance Figure 4. A Chavín pututu on display at the Museo Nacional Chavín. The pronounced notch to the of an avian wing emerging from the shell’s upper/apical lip combined with linear engravings lip. On some of the pututus, this visual- suggests the contours of an avian wing and feathers. Photo by José Luis Cruzado Coronel.

32 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) interpretations of Chavín’s visual culture. the accumulation of diverse zoomorphic Whereas Chavín’s figural iconography traits.”74 Andean anthropologist and visual depicts agents of ecological dominance, culture theorist Mary Weismantel has these evocations of apex predators occur proposed that Chavín’s “stones did not just in mythical or imagined combinations, offer images that represented a shamanic including anthropoid figures who hold vision; by offering an encounter with a body what have been interpreted as Strombus and both like and unlike their own, the stones Spondylus sea shells, and the locally sourced actually materialize shamanic looking as a “San Pedro” cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi). bodily, sensory experience.”75 Combinations of features from different Given the vast array of depicted predators have been posed as evidence for superbeings with kinetic implications with- intentionally encoded ideas (e.g., Rowe’s in Chavín’s elaborate built environment, “kennings”/substitution model),70 shamanic such transformations were likely enacted at transformation (e.g., Torres’ metaphorical- Chavín. The production of transformations, metamorphical discussion and Weismantel’s shamanic and theatrical, requires humanly reconfigured animism),71 and even as manipulable tools, in both the tangible suggesting that their depictors lacked actual form of physical objects and the intangible experience with the animals represented and medium of performance. At Chavín, these instead interpreted them from descriptions transformations would have been interactive or traded goods. with its architecture and highland setting. Chavín’s anthro-zoomorphic beings Pututus would have been multimodally have been read as evidence for consciousness- functional in such a ritual context, serving transforming ritual practices;72 the giant simultaneously as animate/animable sym- stone “tenon heads” once pegged into bols and as objects of sensory interaction the tops of building facades frequently that facilitated or accompanied the depict upturned eyes, grimaces, and transformation of their human performers mucus trails descending from nostrils, all into/as amalgamated superbeings. In ethnographically observed features from this context, the distinct carvings on each the consumption of botanical psychotropics pututu somehow related pututus with their in Amazonian shamanic practices.73 In (super)human associates. the context of these features, Chavín’s Apart from VanValkenburgh’s detailed amalgamations of living beings have been study that links similarities in the interpreted as evidence of psychotropically iconographic elements of pututus with enhanced ritual transformations between graphics from Chavín-associated sites, and human/nonhuman predatory animal/ further discussion by Ferras that highlights divinity states. Andean art historian the powerful zoomorphic representations Constantino Manuel Torres has argued in on some shells,76 the signification potential detail for these shamanistic interpretations, of the pututus’ engravings has not been noting that “transformation, or the explored with respect to their sociological acquisition of zoomorphic attributes, is implications. Each pututu’s imagery a common thread running through the suggests work by a different craftsperson literature on shamanism….It is not only (or people), perhaps representative of transformation into jaguar or bird, but also diverse sites or polities,77 strong supporting

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 33 evidence for the idea of Chavín as a center performance of symbolic relationships. of convergence among elite regional leaders The following discussion of site archae- or other individuals of means to have oacoustics, performance experiments, and acquired these rare prestige goods. Rick has music archaeology propels my argument. suggested that the distinct carvings on each pututu, while demonstrating interaction Pututus at the “Sounding Temple”: among power centers, may further relate to Performance and Contextual Affordances competition among them.78 I return again in Chavín Ritual to the material-contextual focus of my study, Testament to the technological prowess of and point out the persistence of graphics on its constructors, the stone-and-earthen- the shells despite notching that seems to mortar architecture of the monumental have occurred after their decoration, because center at Chavín de Huántar visually some engravings seem to have extended dominates its narrow highland-valley river through the excised areas. These graphics plain, having withstood repeated landslides facilitated messaging that was not erased and earthquakes since the first millennium despite other modifications to the pututus. b.c.e.79 Recognized as a UNESCO World The preservation of identity-projecting Heritage site since 1985,80 Chavín visual signage on these instruments— welcomes tourists year-round under the within Chavín’s system of social ordering auspices of the Peruvian Ministerio de and access-resource control—is consistent Cultura (Ministry of Culture) and has with the positionality of pututus as status hosted archaeological fieldwork since the markers. Not only were they rare prestige early twentieth century.81 Contextually goods with particular sound-producing appropriate conservation82 is prioritized in potentialities, but pututus are graphically current site research led by archaeologist depicted across Chavín iconography; John Rick of Stanford University with they are one of only a few objects held by several Peruvian co-directors, a program anthro-zoomorphic, superhuman figures in its twenty-sixth year in 2019, to (as shown in Figs. 3 and 8). I propose which I have contributed as an associated that the human-pututu relationship was researcher, leading archaeoacoustics and socially pivotal at Chavín, in keeping music archaeology investigations at the site with patterns of hierarchical control and since 2008. superhuman projections reiterated across Chavín’s archaeological reputation site materials. Sociopolitically, the Chavín as “the sounding temple” comes not pututus would have facilitated elite status from its pututus, but from hypothesized and simultaneously provided a multimodal architectural acoustics and a sonic mechanism for projecting that status. A observation claimed to have been made pututu performer’s versatility, nuance, during experimental hydraulics testing of and sensitivity to contextual acoustics— the under-staircase canal that flanks its including interaction dynamics with Circular Plaza. In their 1976 publication, other pututus—would have functionally Peruvian archaeologist Luis G. Lumbreras, substantiated that individual’s pututu with colleagues Chacho Gonzáles and association, legitimizing the relationship/ Bernard Lietaer, posed “a hypothesis about status through ritual production; through an acoustic sound-producing system, and

34 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) a hypothesis about a hydraulic system to audio recordings. In his preliminary study, feed it” within Chavín architecture, which Lubman calculated a plausible sound includes “tubes for sound to exit resonance transmission range for such instruments rooms,” but they did not conduct acoustical and presented his findings at a meeting of measurements or make further tests.83 the ASA in 2002.88 Lubman’s estimations Historical recognition of ritualized sonics at provided Rick with metrics and a scientific Chavín dates to sixteenth- and seventeenth- basis for claims about the pututus’ loudness century European explorer-missionaries’ and transmission range, useful descriptors discussions of an “oracle site” where a so- that conform to normative definitions of called demon spoke. An account from 1691 the instrument. describes Chavín as “a building that is very Following on his initial loudness-limits feared and greatly venerated and they call it approach to the instrument, Rick wanted the house of the huacas” where “they [the to know more about the functionality huacas] spoke and answered the men [who of pututus at Chavín, and in discussion were] their children, and [they spoke] with Chowning, invited researchers from to the heads of lineage that exist today Stanford University’s Center for Computer among the Indians of this land.”84 Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) Despite the importance of sonic to engage a comprehensive study of the 19 communication to these historical and Chavín pututus then housed in the Museo archaeological claims, archaeoacoustical Nacional Chavín and to conduct exploratory investigations were not engaged at Chavín fieldwork starting in 2008.89 During our until our acoustical project formed in initial investigations, audio scientist and 2007 at Stanford University, spurred applied mathematician Jonathan S. Abel by discussions with Rick initiated by led digital signal processing analyses at composer and computer music pioneer Stanford, in collaboration with computer John Chowning.85 Sonic inquiry had musician and vocal acoustical modeling been re-sparked by Rick and team’s 2001 specialist Perry Cook. Cook performed the excavation of the Chavín pututus, 20 intact, pututus in the systematic measurement decorated marine-shell horns also known sessions at Chavín that I organized, assisted as “shell trumpets” that grounded evidence by audio scientists Patty Huang and Jyri for sound-producing instruments at the Huopaniemi, and documented in photos site beyond its previously known graphical and videography by José Cruzado, Cobi depictions.86 Upon their discovery, Rick van Tonder, and Stacie Brink. Rick called charted the playable pututus’ sounding on Peruvian master musician Tito La tones with his guitar tuner and enlisted Rosa as an expert performer to join our an acoustician to metrically evaluate their evaluations of the pututus in the museum sound-producing potential. David Lubman, (see Fig. 5). In addition to acoustical a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America measurements of the excavated pututus, in (ASA) whose work on the Kukulkan which shells player Cook demonstrated a Temple staircase chirp at the Maya site range of sounding techniques, our group Chitzén Itzá was one of the earliest and commenced on-site testing with shell-horn most widely publicized archaeoacoustical replicas, joined by performance theorist studies,87 ran spectral analyses on Rick’s Chris Chafe, director of CCRMA. The

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 35 complementary and overlapping expertise are preserved and displayed in the Museo among our team strengthened the rigor of Nacional Chavín, La Rosa initiated long- our methodological decisions. Our initial tone, circular-breathing-supported playing research plan was to adapt established of each Chavín pututu by blowing breath experimental acoustics methods to Chavín’s through the instrument without producing extant architecture and sound-producing tonal sound. He amplified the sonic gesture instruments, both for documentation and of his breath as if joining it with wind, to validate reconstruction estimates in a metonymical association I make here, planned computational acoustical modeling. without knowledge of La Rosa’s intention. During our group’s initial visit inside This master musician’s performance Chavín’s interior “gallery” architecture, choreography, sending amplified breaths Rick demonstrated that pututus can serve toward each of the cardinal directions, as vocal amplifiers rather than tonal sound emphasized a specific relationship with the producers by using one to simulate feline Andean sierran setting common in earth- roars in reference to the site’s plentiful honoring ceremonies.92 We cannot know feline depictions. whether these performance techniques or my readings of their symbolic relationality map to Chavín pututu performance 3,000 years ago; yet, they constitute demonstrations of the sonic-expressive potential of pututus that can also be tested in site acoustical settings, and with respect to other archaeological materials. Evaluations of an instrument’s sounding potential—in these examples, the contrasting demonstrations by Rick, Cook, and La Rosa Figure 5: Peruvian master musician and sound healer on Strombus pututus—vary depending on Tito La Rosa performing a Chavín pututu as part of the technique and experience of researcher- 2008 musical acoustics research at the Museo Nacional Chavín. Photo by José Luis Cruzado Coronel. performers. Peruvian archaeological logistical specialists and pututu players Rick’s megaphonic illustration of pututu Riemann Ramírez and José Cruzado, who functionality leveraged on-site experimental have worked with me to produce on-site performance to pose an alternative practice performance experiments over several field to tonal production, descriptively referred seasons at Chavín, have mastered some to by Cook in systematic measurement specific techniques that La Rosa did not research as “toots” and “blasts.”90 Among employ, including rhythmic articulations their extended range of sonic articulations, such as mouth-corner fluttertonguing, Strombus pututus can amplify human which creates a complex sound distinct vocal production, enhance mimetics of from canonical tonal blasts. These and other nonhuman animals, and transform human experimental performance tests we have breath into wind- and water-like sounds.91 engaged demonstrate specific interaction In his 2008 research performance of dynamics of Chavín pututus (and their Chavín pututus where these instruments functionally representative present-day

36 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) Strombus replicas) with performance guided by Rick over the past quarter- settings. For example, in Chavín’s interior century. In publications that detail metrical architecture, the short reverberation times data toward functional explanations of across all but the lowest frequencies, with Chavín’s built environment, Rick discusses modal-resonance reinforcement of pututu how “different architectural layouts with sounding tones (1) sustains low-frequency varying scales, inter-visibilities, decoration, tonal drones, yet (2) permits accentuated and other features would have been clarity in gestures with higher-frequency effective for specific ceremonies and their energy, such as Rick’s broadband feline cultic outcomes.”95 Rick’s sociostructural roar, or breath-based expressions.93 La interpretation “defines a set of enactors,” Rosa’s research performance in the Museo designers, leaders, and participants in Nacional Chavín demonstrated how that Chavín religion whose intentions and space’s long reverberation times with desired outcomes can only be speculated; discrete echoes are acoustical effects that what can be known most specifically derives become central to expressive timing: La from “architectural contexts [that] give Rosa synchronized performance gestures, hints about the strategy of the planners and including his breathing patterns, with the the experience of the participants.”96 Rick return of echoes and the sustained tones has characterized the religious organization created by the powerful reverberation of Chavín as “a variant of a secret society— in that voluminous concrete museum. in many ways, a cult that relied heavily on Ramírez’s and Cruzado’s site performance restrictive control of information within experiments have demonstrated how a limited membership with implications pututu gestures can be modified to for rights and privileges such as access produce or obscure distance cues, such to resources.”97 In earlier research, Rick as with echo sequences in the outdoor collaborated with his former doctoral Andean environment and on terraces student, archaeologist Sylvia Rodríguez and plazas among building facades.94 Kembel (who conducted a comprehensive Spatial-environmental acoustics do laser-scanning-mapping project to not determine performance practices, produce a new site chronology),98 to lay yet these and other experiments have the groundwork for a theory of Chavín as a documented how acoustical feedback cult initiation and training center99 whose strongly influences the selection and social structure relied on a “tradition-based timing of sound production and musical convincing system.”100 gestures. The built environment, whether Drawing out a detailed cross-temporal or not constructed to enable specific architectural analysis, in their 2004 article, acoustical effects, contributes to the sonic Kembel and Rick proposed that while communication substrate in accordance Chavín’s exterior architecture projected with particular affordances. “the authority of Chavín’s leaders” its Functional analyses of instrument experientially focused interior spaces and architectural acoustics and their constituted an performance interactivity align with the internal landscape of galleries using empirical scientific approach prioritized a range of natural elements to in archaeometric fieldwork at Chavín communicate a message of power to

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 37 visitors. Twisting, disorienting, multi- a conception of nature as perverse. The level galleries, with walls encased in landscape itself, as well as the architecture multi-colored plaster and decorated with within it, was thus an important medium niches, form the artificial setting for what of communication, whether the target we believe to have been a ‘multimedia’ of that communication was elites, display designed to convince visitors commoners, or supernaturals (or all of of the power of the site, its deities, and those simultaneously).102 their human representatives: anthracite mirrors strategically directing light into In subsequent work, Contreras further galleries through ventilation shafts from developed his interpretation of Chavín’s the exterior . . . smoke easily transferred human–environmental positionality, pro- from one gallery to the next via internal posing that “the construction of Chavín’s ventilation shafts, internal water canals setting was a statement of capacity—such purportedly sending roars of sound into a project visibly projected the ability of the galleries . . . and visually elaborate those behind it, not only to mobilize labour stone decoration and art, all experienced and plan massive construction, but also during ritual drug use . . . would have provided a full sensory impact — and to negotiate with an animate landscape probably overload. With these elements, from a position of relative strength and the leaders at Chavín de Huántar gained to manage a reciprocal relationship with control over the visitors’ environment.101 the animate environment, not simply as a 103 Ritual performance of Chavín’s built supplicant, but as a partner.” Building environment—the dynamical activation of on Contreras’s point, I propose, via a architectural and landform surroundings dynamical assessment of converging through theatrically valent interactions— material factors, that one such negotiation could produce sensory effects associated was specifically enacted through pututu with recognition of environmental risk and performance. Ritual enactment using the demonstration of its control. ecologically representative objects and Ritualized activations of a designed materials translates conceptualizations of environment activate the human– human–environmental relationships into environmental conceptualizations it man- symbolical interactions. ifests. Archaeologist Daniel Contreras, The environmental interactivity who led fieldwork in Chavín’s West evinced and communicated in landscape Field sector while a doctoral student of modification and architectural development Rick, has developed an environmentally at Chavín might be understood as both situated sociopolitical analysis. Contreras product of and instrument for a religious proposed that organization that Rick has described as “an evolved shamanism” where authorities the ritual structures and landscape or cult “priests” legitimized their power suggest that ritual at Chavin served both 104 strategic purposes (i.e. the legitimation through sensorial powerplays. Peruvian of authority…) and apotropaic purposes archaeologist Christian Mesía-Montenegro, (i.e. dialogue and relationship with who excavated ritual production areas supernaturals/deities). Ritual, in this at Chavín while a doctoral student of context, may also be understood as a Rick,105 has situated this religious model rational response to situation in a risky anthropologically and sociologically: environment—or, more specifically, to

38 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) …authority at Chavín was derived hierarchical machinery—even facilitating from recourse to shamanistic practices. that corporate structuring as well as ritual According to ethnographic research, shamans generally serve their society in functions—what were those transformations, a manner that dispenses with explicit and how did they work? In their emphasis manifestations of a position of power on features enabling physical dominance, in that society; they pursue the same such as fangs and claws, Chavín’s supernal livelihood-related activities as the multibeings are decisively power-projecting. society’s other members. According to What might be implied, then, by the pututu Rick, Chavín’s authorities presented with facial features and fangs that is held themselves as successors to a pre- existing shamanic tradition which they by a snake-haired personage on one of actually carried much further: they no Chavín’s stone plaques? One way to read longer served it but made it serve them; this depiction is that it asserts a corporate that is, they succeeded in constructing hierarchy, beyond humans, reaching an image which purported to perpetuate cosmologically: the fierce, snake-haired ancient traditions, whereas in fact, they superbeing holding the fanged pututu is were upending the existing systems and controlling a fierce nonhuman being that is directly benefitting as a result.106 similarly supernal to its marine counterpart. Mesía-Montenegro’s emphasis on the In Chavín graphics, winged humanoids hold duality of shamanic-quotidian identity pututus with their spires removed (to make provides a sociopolitical model to fit submissive instruments/vocal channels), Chavín evidence: shamans might be and fiercer, more zoomorphic personages perceived as humans having superhuman grasp spire-intact, animated conch shells. potential; humans who had acquired the Across representations, hierarchically tuned capacity for superhuman transformation. power plays characterize Chavín knowledge Superhumanization at Chavín would thus design in its dissemination materials, have served as both a social mobilizer crossing communication modalities107 with and authority-legitimization strategy purposeful demonstrative currency. that leveraged pututus and other site Rick’s site interpretations interrelate technologies not accessible to quotidian multimodal factors in a narrative about humans. Access to these tools—and strategic design: “At Chavin, much of the specialized skill in using them—thus development of technology—for example, indicated elite status, and could facilitate ceramic, stone, bone, shell, acoustic, con- higher social movement in Chavín’s ritual structive, hydraulic developments—seems corporation. In accordance with this tightly linked to a driving need to innovate model, the Chavín pututus are positioned in ritual contexts, acts, and effects.”108 as multimodal ritual tools to facilitate Sensorially potent representations of beings and project elite status, mobilizing the with amalgamated power features would symbolical relationships expressed in site have enabled their promoters to enliven materials by facilitating the performance cosmological narratives—perhaps aligning of superhuman transformations, thus themselves as supernaturals, or claiming enabling major social leverage at Chavín. intermediary status—thereby constructing If the pututu functioned as a ritual tool or reinforcing Chavín ideologies via both in transformations operational to Chavín’s materials and performances to justify

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 39 their positionality as world-builders document, and characterize both interior (cosmological agents). As a pivotal operator spaces and exterior areas. Of particular in multimodal expression, sonic culture— relevance to site ritual, the Lanzón Gallery especially performed, interactive narratives encloses the Lanzón, a vertically oriented, built from physical-sonic demonstrations 4.5-meter-high granite monolith, relief- rather than verbalizations of meaning— carved into a fanged, anthro-zoomorphic would have supported, leveraged, and figure with upturned eyes, clawed hands, superseded static visual messaging. and snakes around its head. Its name in How pututus fit within Chavín’s Spanish indicates its lance-like form; in hierarchical chains-of-being associations the archaeological literature this engraved underlies the ways that pututus could have monolith has been agnostically termed sonically expressed dominance; yet their the “Great Image” by Rowe.112 However, acoustical fit with site settings is equally both its naming and structure may imply important, given their use-wear evidence skeuomorphical representation, especially and sound-producing potential. A facile with a ceremonial agricultural implement assertion of loudness fails to address with that pierces the ground, according to specificity the range of ritual settings that Andean art historian Tom Cummins.113 Chavín’s other cultural materials evince. Evidence for increasing architectural Conch-shell horns—Chavín’s emblematic envelopment of the Lanzón over time sound producers—can generate powerful supports claims of its heightening impor- sounds that demand attention, but that is tance (or its role in fomenting mystery) only one use for an instrument that facili- at a site where access to spaces was tates many sonic expressions, within a built further restricted over time.114 A hidden, environment whose range of structural and access-controlled image-being shrouded acoustical settings imply contrasting ritual in architectural mystery, this towering functions. When performed by adept players, huaca has been proposed as an apex of a Strombus pututus produce myriad sounds ritual journey with an oracular function. in frequency and gesture, across a dynamic The ceremonial locus of the Lanzón range from near inaudibility to around Gallery and the countersunk Circular Plaza 96dBA and even up to 110dBA at one to its east—an area with a convergence of meter without acoustical reinforcement.109 pututu-related evidence—would have been a The sonic nuance possible in pututu sensorially intensified “place apart,”115 faced performance—explored in relationship with with relief-carved, then-colorfully adorned the monumental architecture and material plaques encircling its 21-meter-diameter, culture of Chavín—constitutes evidence for sound-focusing walls. When intact, its communication strategies and experience polished stone floor and isolation from the design operational to the transformational exterior environment and other site spaces experiences required for world-building by tall, rectilinear side walls would have in this “place apart;” 110 a deliberately emphasized stillness and silence, with the multimodal “ritualscape.”111 potential for contrasting loudness through Chavín’s well-preserved built envi- sound-making activities that would lose ronment has enabled comprehensive very little acoustical energy in a lengthy architectural-acoustical research to test, sequence of reverberations among polished

40 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) stone surfaces. Such a place enabling an and-white design; pututu performers are extensive acoustical dynamical range, where featured on engraved stone plaques lining sensoria could be controlled to extremes, the plaza walls (Fig. 4). However, it is would have been instrumental in producing architectural acoustics that dynamically the sudden perceptual contrasts that direct corroborate pututu associations here: three people’s attention and produce heightened horizontal ducts opening on the wall and affective responses. Sound sensing—both staircase between the Circular Plaza and via auditory perception and also through the Lanzón Gallery mechanically facilitate physical vibrations felt throughout the the sounding tones of pututus to pass body—is neurologically linked to visual through, while filtering out frequencies psychology, yet provides connections important to the definition of many other among other sensory modalities, to produce sounds, such as human speech. The central holistic perceptions and strongly encoded duct, opening on the impressive staircase memories.116 The presence of pututus, that overlies what has become known in and around this sensorially catalytic as Chavín’s “acoustical canal,” further architecture, underscores the importance of emphasizes sonic frequencies in the sound-sensing in Chavín ritual. articulation range of the Chavín pututus. Converging material evidence associ- In initial discussion of my measurement ates the Chavín pututus with the Circular and analysis of these built acoustical Plaza: they were excavated in two small features (diagrammed in Fig. 6), I galleries adjacent; several fossil sea-snail emphasized their perceptual implications; shells adorn the plaza floor, whose surface the ritual communication channel that stones were arranged in a polished black- they facilitate:

Figure 6: Architectural reconstruction of Chavin’s Lanzón Gallery and Circular Plaza (left), highlighting the direct sound transmission path from the area around the Lanzón monolith through the gallery and out into the plaza, with the 4.5-meter-high granite figure depicted in place and shown in a fisheye photo (right). Reconstruction by Miriam Kolar and José Luis Cruzado Coronel from in-situ measurements and with architectural data courtesy of Silvia Rodríguez Kembel. Model, illustration, and photograph by José Cruzado; composite figure previously published in article by Kolar, Acoustics Today (14/4: 34; Fig. 6).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 41 … the central duct is the shortest especially to the ways in which acoustical transmission path for sound produced feedback affects performance choices— inside the gallery, on its central axis, to dynamics that can tangibly alter how enter the outside world [of the Circular humans use pututus to produce sound. The Plaza] . . . sound produced inside the Lanzón Gallery impresses an outside acoustical resonances supported by the listener most prominently from the width and height dimensions of Chavín direction and location of the central galleries and canals, typically in the range duct’s opening on the staircase. Due to of one to three meters, amplify tones in the psychoacoustical precedence effect, the most readily produced range of pututu sound would seem to emerge from the performance. My experimental work with location of the Lanzón, the “Great Voice” replica Strombus pututus in collaboration of Chavín, its proposed oracle.117 with José Cruzado (see Fig. 7, next page) Visually, the Lanzón cannot be appraised demonstrated and produced documentation except from within its gallery; however, of a particular “resonance compliance” effect given that sound travels where images between pututus and gallery architecture, cannot, sound made in proximity to the and also between pairs of pututus.119 Lanzón could be directed into the Circular The acoustical resonance compliance Plaza as an indication of presence—a effect physicalizes power dynamics: either sonic representation of the idea of the between architecture and instrument- Lanzón, or perhaps a ritualized channeling performer, or between performers of of its voice. Knowledge that the Lanzón instruments. Pututus and corridors, when existed somewhere inside the monumental energized with sound, are filled with vi- buildings118 would have primed site visitors brating air; their walls, whether on the scale to anticipate Lanzón-associable signals of the instrument or the building, enclose produced from the interior and directed vibrating air columns during soundmaking. outwards. Bidirectional communication The fundamental frequency at which such an would also have been possible, although acoustically energized enclosed air column hierarchical frameworks throughout vibrates due to its rigid boundaries is, in Chavín suggest that directionality of acoustical terms, its resonance frequency. sound moving outwards was privileged. Two such vibrating air columns, when Sound-sensing, rather than vision, would brought into proximity, can join together, have been an effective and mystery- creating one vibrating air column. Prior promulgating transmission modality for to this acoustical coupling, the resonance directing information from the Lanzón’s frequencies within each separate enclosure location to exterior locations and awaiting were most likely perceptually distinct from constituencies. each other, but, as the mechanical principle Acoustical analyses of the ducts that of resonance compliance describes, on interconnect the Lanzón Gallery and coupling, the higher-energy vibration Circular Plaza reveal a mechanism that dominates and the two columns transform specifically links pututu soundmaking into one, perceptually synchronizing. with architectural design at Chavín. Other When performed in the modally resonant examples of architectural acoustical Chavín galleries, pututus’ tones can change enhancement of pututu sound relate in compliance with resonances enforced by

42 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) the architecture around them: “Present-day pututu. This effect, although perceptible pututu players have reported the experience by listeners, is especially pronounced for of their instruments’ tones being ‘pulled into performers: the player of the pututu that tune’ with these architectural resonances. shifts in tone often experiences a cessation This eerie effect is both sonic and sensed, of the horn’s tone before compliance, like an acoustic experience that is not only having one’s voice silenced, before the heard, but felt through the body, an external performer rejoins the now collective sound- force that seemingly influences the way making event in unintended unison.121 the instrument is played.”120 Two pututus Enlivening Chavín through performance performed together in close proximity, with reconstructions with Strombus pututus bell/lip openings closely aligned, can exhibit has revealed functionalities and bolstered a similar effect: the pututu having greater theoretical arguments for the sensory sound power at the dominant resonance design of its ritualscape.122 The specificity of frequency may compel compliance of the pututu sounds to diverse acoustical settings other pututu. In such a dynamic, the weaker at Chavín suggests that these instruments— pututu loses autonomy of its internal air and perhaps their expressive, multifaceted column, which becomes part of an external, performance techniques—were anthropic more powerful acoustical vibratory system, innovations in the production of Chavín’s in this case controlled by the stronger experiential transformations and cosmo-

Figure 7: In performance experiments in the Laberintos Gallery inside Chavín’s monumental architecture, José Cruzado Coronel (left) and Miriam Kolar (right) perform Strombus pututus similar to instruments excavated at the site. Architectural acoustical resonances and the interaction of instruments result in the coupling of air columns between the two pututus, and within the corridor (resonance compliance of three acoustical systems). The perceptual result is synchrony. Photo from 2012 video by Cruzado and Kolar (Kolar, “Pututus, Resonance and Beats”).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 43 logical interventions. At Chavín, “overt In an exploration of making meaning manipulation of the physical world [was] from music making, ethnomusicologist and a clear demonstration of power, whereas Andean music specialist Thomas Turino has the manipulation of unseen experiential detailed how musical interactions across effects via architectural forms that create cultures fit the theory of optimal experiences, distinct acoustic experiences [was] a or flow, as defined by psychologist Mihaly subversive tool”123 for sensory influence. Csikszentmihalyi, who “asserts that flow The intangible cultural affordances of experiences result in both a temporary the Chavín pututus in their monumental transcendence and a cumulative expansion of context—the physically and symbolically the self.”125 Immersed in flow, music makers flow-controlling, ancient virtual world and deeply involved audiences—especially of Chavín de Huántar—stem from the those moving in rhythmic synchrony with combination of their material-ecological sonic vibrations and production gestures— basis and their dynamical reappropriation experience a form of altered consciousness. as ritual technologies in Chavín’s built Csikszentmihalyi’s studies have documented environment. how temporal perception shifts for those in flow, where immersion in a physically and Transformative Flows: emotionally optimized activity transcends Sonic Transcendence at Chavín quotidian experience. In a popular synthesis Sound, water, and humans move in flows of his “quarter-century of psychological throughout a dynamically considered research on happiness,”126 Csikszentmihalyi Chavín, where paths for these flows were has noted that “quite often people mention structured in earth-and-stone channels for experiencing self-transcendence in flow,” communication, materials, and people, in a lack of self-awareness related to their ritual movement and processes. Materially concentrated immersion, “a distortion and metaphorically, “flow experiences” of the sense of time…resembl[ing] a are suggested by Chavín’s material culture; dream state.”127 Flow-state experiences are ethnographical analogies used for its associated with meditation and the shamanistic religious models reference contemplative practices of many religious behaviors and affects associated with traditions, and given architectural evidence flow experiences. Converging evidence for the sensory isolation of individuals or suggests that flow-state-inducing rituals small groups, it is likely that Chavín ritual at Chavín would have involved partic- would have included such practices. There ipants in a variety of roles, from entrainees are many ways that sonic performance and in rhythmical music and dance, to leaders sound stimuli can induce flow; a range of as entranced pututu performers, a pututu performance techniques could have theatrical realization of the superhuman been employed in flow-inducing ritual at transformations inferred from the site’s Chavín. In supporting meditation, pututus visual culture. Here, I propose a model could have been used to produce droning for trancing pututu performers—ritually sounds that change slowly over time, or immersed, “evolved shamans,” following emphasize stasis, which is acoustically Rick’s interpretation—as ritual leaders enhanced by resonances inside gallery at Chavín.124 cells where meditators could be isolated.

44 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) However—and more compelling in its the probable consumption of botanical implications for pututu performers at entheogens/hallucinogens. Sensory Chavín—experiential flow dependent upon stimulation would have been focused in both repetitive performance and sonic particular ways, channeling experiences perception has been widely associated with in ritual flows. trance states in shamanic practices and The idea that musical flow-state and ritual musics.128 trance experiences were pivotal to some Superhumanized pututu players— ritual experiences at Chavín aligns with whether theatrical roleplayers and/or non-sonic interpretations that alterations immersed participant-facilitators within of consciousness characterized site ritual. Chavín’s evolved shamanistic ritual Material archaeology from Chavín highlights model—fit ethnographical descriptions of objects and depictions of affect that have trancers, musical performers demonstrably been ethnographically associated with the immersed in flow states, exuding consumption of entheogens/psychotropics, affect, continually in motion, creating including its iconic anthro-zoomorphic extraordinary multimodal displays, and beings interpreted as depictions of compelling the participation of others. shamanic transformation.131 Psychotropics/ Ethnomusicologist Judith Becker, whose entheogens derived from botanical cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary hallucinogens were arguably prepared and study of music, emotion, and trancing ingested at Chavín using stone mortars and examines ethnographic, historical, and pestles, tablets, and bone snuff tubes, among neurobiological accounts, notes that other site-excavated objects identified Cziksentmihalyi’s “flow” definition “aptly as associated paraphernalia.132 Chavín’s describe[es] the skillful movement of experientially immersive and acoustically many musicians. His list of the attributes specific built environment would have of flow suggests trancing as well.”129 enhanced flow-state experiences via spaces Becker asserts that “the interpenetration conducive to profound sensory stimulation of music with trancing is ancient and and attention focusing, produced through universal….Trancing can be empowering physical isolation of people within space- for all concerned, attesting to the divine and access-restricted interior architecture, 133 presence in one’s midst, legitimizing as well as architectural acoustics that the religious beliefs and practices of the emphasize quiet or acoustical contrasts, community, and often bestowing deep amplify specific frequencies in zones of satisfaction on the individual trancer.”130 resonance, and produce contexts unlike the Chavín optimized conditions for musical quotidian. Across these settings, immersive trancing: its pututu performers would multimodal sensing experiences, such as have been engaged in theatrical, ritualized those involving people in simultaneous sound production, in a highly designed, production of sound and movement, could immersive environment that featured induce flow states with the potential to alter graphical depictions of transformed individual consciousness, as well as reinforce superhumans. Chavín’s architectural and social unity in the case of group ritual. As visual conditions emphasized multisensory Turino has observed in ethnomusicological effects and contrasts, augmented by discussion: “At such moments, moving

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 45 together and sounding together in a group shamanic ritual, and supported by Chavín’s creates a direct sense of being together and interior architectural acoustics. Inferentially of deeply felt similarity, and hence, identity, corroborating evidence may be found in among participants.”134 one artifact sound-producing object whose Beyond the expressly theatrical association with Chavín is contested due and symbolic sonics operational in to its unknown provenance: a ritual spoon/ Chavín’s ritually activated environment, rattle decorated with a pututu player sitting sound would have facilitated a range of atop what has been interpreted by Burger as a experiential dynamics, as well as practical “shaman’s stool,” a plausible ritual implement communication functions, including not identified in Chavín excavations, verbal language. The prominence of sonic- perhaps due to its likely construction from rhythmic devices in shamanic practices nonpersistent materials.138 suggests the use of similar attention- Superhuman transformations and focusing soundmaking in Chavín ritual. objects ethnographically associated with Rhythmic, rattling soundproducers are shamanism and musical trancing stand out frequently associated with shamanism and in Chavín’s material record. Implied through trance states in ethnographic accounts, visual imagery and ritual tools, control of and in art historical discussions of human transformations parallels control archaeological objects.135 It is no coincidence of nonhuman beings and dominance over that such instruments rely upon haptic the environmental elements reconfigured coordination, providing sensory feedback in Chavín constructions. Through its to their performers through the sense of material associations in ritual activation, a touch and interrelated perceptions. Pututus pututu interconnected humans, nonhuman can be performed rhythmically, either by beings, and environmental dynamics. This breath-driven articulation techniques, or by is a network of cosmological relationality percussively producing what some present- expressed visually, sonically, and per- day lip-valve instrument players refer to formatively; traceable through graphics as the instrument’s “popping” tone, by that were propaganda for Chavín thought striking the mouthpiece with the flattened production: signs and symbols within palm of one’s hand (one gesture Cook used a system of directed messaging that to produce an impulsive measurement of also leveraged animated, performative pututu acoustics in our 2008 study).136 participation in the immersive Chavín In discussion of the first acoustical ritualscape. measurements of Chavín galleries, we The relationships I call attention to observed that “preliminary measurements here involve tangible if (re)constructed at Chavin show a short reverberation beings and actions: among the composited time, dense and energetic early reflections, personages carved into Chavín stone and low inter-aural cross correlation. The are humanoid figures, some with fangs, short reverberation time would enable wings, tails, and clawed feet: of the known rhythmically articulated playing of Strombus depictions of pututu players, the three that shell trumpets found on site.”137 Rhythmic clearly perform pututus (one on the cornice sounding of pututus is a practice consistent stone shown in Fig. 8, and two on plaques with a performative aspect common to decorating the Circular Plaza, Fig. 3) have

46 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) wings (and note that the cactus-staff bearer which can also be understood as sensed does not). That these humanoid pututu phenomena, even without the explanations players were depicted as able to take flight of acoustical science—indicates specific and thus dominate the air—the winds— conceptual linkages through environ- is no coincidence: pututu performance mental activation. Can we consider these requires breath, and breath transformed functional estimations to be clues regarding through a pututu in the Andean sierra contextual priorities of past humans? The can enter the wind more powerfully work of archaeological interpretation is than a human voice if tonally performed, to substantiate their likelihood through with physical immunity to the effects of converging material factors. windshear,139 a prominent climatic effect Although we cannot ascertain meaning in the Andean highlands. If performed to from stone carvings, the prominent produce breath sounds, these airy pututu positioning of pututu-personages and gestures ricochet among the hard stone superhuman beings suggests that Chavín surfaces of Chavín’s immense building operationalized these images; well- facades before dissipating into the wind. established models for site ritual founded Pututus directly relate with air, as it flows in material evidence corroborate my through them in performance; performed, contention that Chavín ritual leaders they inject the air around them with sounding would have leveraged associated narratives. and breath transformed into airflow that Real-life instantiations of such beings may sonically articulates the features of its have been produced by theatrically and surroundings. Chains of physical dynamical psychotropically enlivening them through associations such as these reveal contours of ritual enactments; performances could symbolical expressions without explaining have induced trancing and other flow- their significance. The functional, material state experiences, further deepening the basis of these dynamical analyses—events otherworldly power of Chavín by incarnating

Figure 8: Winged, seashell-bearing personages are depicted on this relief-carved cornice stone that would have projected outward along a building exterior, in a skyward position to be seen from below. The left-most figure holds a pututu to its mouth. Photo by José Luis Cruzado Coronel and Miriam Kolar.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 47 its graphical culture. By experimentally been selectively visible. Chavín’s aquatic performing Strombus pututus in Chavín relationality is communicated through settings, we test some proposed elements its canals, its pututus, and its crocodilian of site ritual, out of social and temporal imagery, with a supernal cayman reinforced context, but in relationship with remnant as both a repeated visual symbol and sonic material and environmental constituents, icon141 produced by the roaring of water revealing relationships otherwise still and flowing through the “acoustic canal” under silent. Archaeologically integrated, site- the Circular Plaza staircase and other stone- situated archaeoacoustical performance lined canals. reconstructions enable empirical testing Chavín’s reconfigured stone and water and observation of symbolically charged channeling effectively repurposes ecological sound making, reactivating ritual settings, elements fundamental to Chavín’s high- and reinstantiating flows of information land environment, where airflow—also linked to past cosmological expressions structured throughout Chavín’s architecture, through Chavín’s monumental channels. by way of the so-called ventilation shafts, the predominantly horizontal ducts that Wind, Water, and World-Building at interlace its buildings—facilitates human life Chavín: An Interpretation and the hydrologic cycle that makes water Monumental Chavín activated and expressed available for Chavín ritual manipulations. power dynamics through architectonic- Wind is essential to water: wind signals environmental positioning, graphical and propagates storms that bring rain amalgamations of predatory animals and to the Andes. Wind ritual, therefore, fiercely appointed humanoid personages, necessarily complements water ritual at objectified-transformed beings-as-pututus, Chavín. Pairings are important to Chavín, and demonstrable sonic icons produced via constructed architectonically and visually, as architectural and instrumental acoustics. in the black-and-white stone delineations of Human–environmental relations were staircases, symbolical entryways, and plaza expressed throughout Chavín materials, and flooring. The dynamical-environmental are corroboratively evinced in their particular pairing of wind and water fits this materially functional assemblages at the site. Control patterned internal logic both structurally of the sierran substrate, stone, is manifest and functionally. in Chavín’s stone-and-earthen-mortar The importance of air and the Andean architecture, and dramatically highlighted wind to Chavín has been overlooked in its where stone was cut and polished, creating a discourse. Airflow is a theme expressed supernatural lithic surface on certain sections architecturally, instrumentally, and ico- of building facades and portals, staircases, nographically, consistent with Chavín’s and the floor of the Circular Plaza. Control of representations of prowess over other water—which arrives in Chavín from rivers environmental domains. Operational to and sky, flowing through and over Chavín’s Chavín’s water-directing canal system and restructured ground140—characterizes ritual the performance of its water-originating locations throughout the site, some of whose pututus, airflow is specifically channeled activities would have been only heard by by horizontal ducts throughout the non-participants, while others could have site, and plausibly emphasized via ritual

48 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) smoke that could have been produced inscrutable. The expulsive linear patterns under vertical chimney-like structures are twisted articulations of flows suggestive that have small ledges at their bases.142 of many Chavín-associable themes— The air-filled space of the sky provides waves, smoke, lightning, stems of plants; a cosmological emplacement for figures purging, serpent bodies, rhythmic depicted in site iconography, situating the movement—perhaps akin to the twisting avian zoomorphic power features (beaks emblem down the back of the Lanzón and claws) that have been amalgamated that has been interpreted as a spine or a with many of Chavín’s supernatural apex symbolically twisted cord (to articulate predators who effectively control water only a few formal associations with the (crocodilians) and earth (felines), as well archaeological context). Interpretations as the air/sky (raptors). Chavín’s control aside, what can be seen is that these of the winds—unseen, but heard and felt, figures are depicted as engaging with like sound, and sound-generating—is flows, seemingly emitting stuff of material signaled by raptors. Avian apex predators consequence to Chavín, expressive of prevail across Chavín iconography, and are dynamism, interactivity, and potency. seemingly impersonated or superseded by The pututu, activated in Chavín ritual the anthropomorphic winged figures who performance, interconnected its performer carry shells: humans coopting avian features with air by emitting breath and voicings into while also reanimating transposed marine the air; in this way a pututu performer could life (as shown in Fig. 8). Pututus held to the command, address, embody, or otherwise lips of these personages receive and channel the anthropic wind that is breath, into the Andean air and the cosmological beyond. What such a gesture would have indicated cannot now be known, yet it would have transformed a multifaceted assemblage of human–environmental, cosmologically potent symbols in ritual performance, focusing sonic expression into the wind. Recently excavated materials from the Chavín sector known as the Esplanade may depict airflow-as-breath, personifying Figure 9: An engraved stone excavated from Chavín’s wind under human control. A relief-carved northeastern Esplanade in 2014 depicts two plaque143 and two tenon heads with pursed humanoid figures with curvy and jagged lines as if lips144 depict humanoid figures emitting emanating from their mouths (for scale, the smallest division of the north arrow is 1 cm). The photo from something from their lips, filling/covering which this image was cropped (courtesy of John a space larger than their bodies, movements Rick) appeared as Figure 55 in that season’s annual public bulletin, captioned: “Figure 55. Detail of the articulated with directionality from their base of the cyst, now removed, with representation bodies outwards (see Fig. 9). One figure’s of two personages spewing rays and waves from expulsion has jagged contours, while the their mouths. The formal limits of the stone, and probably of the representations themselves, constrain other’s curves: this difference must have the figures which extend to [two] extremes” (author’s conveyed particular distinctions now translation), (PIACCdH 2014:50).

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 49 engage with the winds that bring rain, via been manifest in this performed the specific channel of the pututu. An ocean- interconnection of wind-water symbols, sourced object connected to an earthbound with the pututu as ritual instrument for human, a performed pututu could project communication across environmental- (super)human intentionality through the cosmological domains. Pututu performers, air it drove acoustically. Through material stone-grounded human(oid) facilitators association, a conch-shell horn connects its of wind-water channeling, would thus performer to ocean water, its origin; visually, have served as cosmological transducers, the notched “winged” lip of a Chavín pututu ritually actuating and communicating evokes the potential for flight; dynamically, environmental relations. it launches human-directed airflow into the Extending this wind-water model in sky, the origin of water-as-rain, invoking correspondence with the directionality of an activation-completion of the hydrologic the Chavín valley’s flowing rivers, I propose cycle through the ritual action of breath- that in outdoor/terrace/plaza settings, a driven performance. Acoustically immune to key performance orientation faced east windshear,145 the tonal sound of a Strombus or northeast. Considering pututus as pututu transcends the reach of the human communication tools—proxies for the voice in the sierran environment, yet this human voice, or extensions of human instrument affords myriad sonic gestures breath—implies a directionality in their across the range of human audibility, address that corresponds acoustically making it versatile in acoustically distinct to the opening of the instrument’s bell site settings. (shell lip).146 There is a functional facing A Chavín pututu in the ceremonial locus direction for pututu performance—either of the Lanzón-Circular Plaza, whose under- to the front of the performer, or in the staircase canal acoustics might transform direction of the bell/shell lip opening—as the building into a supernatural cayman, well as several acoustically contrasting could serve as a symbolic mediator between orientations for positioning pututus with the ocean waters of its coastal provenance respect to their performers.147 If Chavín and the cayman-commanded freshwaters pututu performance sought to engage of the Amazonian selva (rainforest), far with the water-bearing environment, to from sierra Chavin, yet present in Chavín’s communicate with the winds or send visual representations of plants and animals influence along the flowing waterways associated with those ecosystems. Disparate outside of the complex, it would be elements of the Andean cosmos would environmentally significant to perform have been symbolically interconnected via pututus northeastward into the prevailing Chavín pututu performance referential of winds and in congruence with the flows of the cycling of water. Chavín pututus could its rivers. Performing pututus toward the thereby invoke a process fundamental direction from which storms typically enter to all forms of life, calling attention to the narrow Chavín valley would symbolically the ecological underpinnings signaled direct air-transformed-by-sound beyond by weather patterns and climatic events. the Cordillera Negra that separates Chavín Chavín’s role as world-view generator from the distant rainforest. Chavín’s north- and cosmological mediator would have flowing, converging rivers initially flow

50 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) east (the Wacheqsa) and north (the Mosna), pegged-to-the-walls presence, oversaw joining at the northeastern extreme of the the northeastern Esplanade, a sector with Chavín plain to send waters that flowed a variety of functionally uncertain features. through Chavín’s canals outward toward Ferras has posed that “tenon heads [having the rainforest. Many discussions of the pursed lips] relate to the use of the Chavín monumental complex suggest pututu, and that the representation of the that its location at a joining of rivers is movement of the breath is part of a sonic symbolically aligned with the Andean dynamic, materialized by the sound of the cosmological concept of tinku, described by pututu and by the graphic representations Andeanist Catherine Allen as “an encounter that accompany it, whether in depictions of opposing yet complementary forces” in of pututus on the stelae, or in the blowing which “an asymmetrical relation is forcibly tenon heads, that are metonymies of the balanced to produce a harmonious one.”148 produced sound.”149 These pursed-lip The journey of waters, and its association tenon heads (see Fig. 10) once presided with wind, could be symbolically engaged over the Esplanade, oriented toward the via (super)human breath transformed intersection of rivers and their selvan- through pututus. directed courseway. Anthropomorphic representations exca- Whether or not pututu performance is vated in the site’s northeastern sector indicated by these anthropic tenon heads’ support this windward-waterway model gesture, the action of their pursed lips that I argue constituted a key orientation most fundamentally suggests moving air- for Chavín ritual. Chavín’s sculptural stone as-breath. However, in the Chavín context, tenon heads, with their larger-than-life, such representations have been argued to

Figure 10: Two pursed-lip tenon heads were excavated from Chavín’s northeastern Esplanade in 2013. A version of this photo (courtesy of John Rick) appeared in that season’s annual public bulletin from the archaeological project, with the following caption: “Figure 37. When they discovered the second tenon head, it began to rain” (35, author’s translation). I do not know my colleagues’ intended point in this note about rain, yet their statement demonstrates Chavín fieldworkers’ conceptual association of these sculptures with environmental factors.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 51 convey affect and actions associated with sierran setting foreign to both—a location entheogenic/psychotropic consumption, an associated with glacial waters that Chavín interpretation that does not preclude mine. rechanneled within its canal system and In situ, these heads loomed over an area thus controlled. Chavín’s geographical where diverse canals run various courses, siting positions it above most earthbound directly positioning them as overseers of waters: near the highest Andean peaks, flowing water. In such a location, these approaching the sky, this water-infused “blowing” tenon heads of the east façade of stone monument intensified and refigured Building C might be as representative of hydrologic dynamics. I propose that Chavín environmental winds—or Chavín’s supernal represented its hydrologic dominance not command of them—as of the human wind- only via grounded flows of water through its generation performance gesture elemental canals, but via airborne expressions through to pututu performance that Ferras has its pututus. Asserting their ecological emphasized, a visual evocation that parallels influence, Chavín’s leaders leveraged the site the sonic transformation of human breath and engaged in rituals to perform control to wind via pututu performance. Multiple over the nonhuman world as well as other simultaneous meanings are possible, humans, via fierce beings depicted visually, and likely. Such multimodal symbolic instantiated sonically, and perhaps embodied reinforcement was a messaging strategy in their own shamanic transformations. employed elsewhere at Chavín, in the Beings represented in stone impersonated architectural-acoustical evocation of a and reanimated environmental forces that super-cayman. Hydraulic sounding150 of the Chavín commanded through ritual means. under-staircase canal separating the Lanzón Yet beyond graphics and architecture, the Gallery from the Circular Plaza could have pututu, a vital ritual technology, a pivotal instantiated a larger-than-life roaring tool in the transformation of human icon that physically reinforced the idea of breath, could distinctly voice cosmological prominent crocodilians displayed across site activations. The Strombus pututu epitomized graphics.151 The personification of winds Chavín’s communicative power. through anthropomorphism in the pursed- In summary, I offer an interpretation of lip tenon heads—wrought larger than life, the cosmological positioning facilitated by in superhuman proportions, and positioned Strombus pututus in Chavín ritual. A living above human activities in an expressly conch is an animate product-being of the ritual space—parallels other Chavín world- water; therefore, a Chavín-transformed, building strategies that project anthropic human-blown conch shell is a reanimated influence onto reconfigured Andean (re)producer of wind, a ritual device environmental models. through which human-generated air joins A supernal cayman, sounding through the surrounding environmental air through Chavín architecture, projects Chavín’s a sounding, transformational conduit. expression of dominance over the selvan Through a Chavín pututu, its (super)human waters of the Amazonian basin; Chavín’s performers voiced virtual flight by joining ritual objectification and performance of breath with wind. Through its notching and oceanic pututus subjugates representations voicing, the pututu was transformed into a of waters from disparate climates within a winged instrument of flight, figuratively

52 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) enabled to join wind via its sounding. The an assertion of human agency to influence performed pututu transduced Chavín forms ecological dynamics. and human actions, connecting water (the Relief-carved stones at Chavín portray shell’s origin) with (performer’s) breath winged, anthropomorphic figures with (emitted through the pututu) into the pututus held to their lips. Whether winds that bring rain earthward to enter the representative of transformed humans ground and flow through earthen rivers and performing rituals, deities, or mythological Chavín canals. In this way, a (super)human personages, these are superhuman pro- performer of a Chavín pututu could propel jections in the context of a sensorially human agency throughout nonhuman immersive environment; an ancient real- domains, symbolically engaging with and ization of a virtual world whose architecturally thus directing or mediating the hydrologic distinct settings respond acoustically to an cycle. Chavín required water to work; winds analogous variety of pututu sounds; a place bring much-needed water when earth is dry, whose architecture and imagery work together sustaining life as well as ritual. to heighten human perceptual responses to pututus.152 Those who commanded— Future-Flying Pututus held, performed, spoke through—pututus Interpretations aside, the Chavín pututus activated Chavín spaces and enlivened site were humanly shaped and voiced; they images in strategic ways. could extend and transform human vocal Pututus can be used to produce expression, and with the intersection of their transcendent experiences. Via rhythmic materiality and performance, they objectify intonation, a pututu performer or human–environmental relationships. Conch listener can cognitively entrain.153 From horns were once sea animals, and thus evoke perceptually immersive soundmaking, water by their prior ecological dependency. as enhanced by gallery resonances or Shells of marine life, their living efficacies through echo sequences in plazas, pututu were (re)instantiated as multifunctional performers may both attain flow-state ritual communication instruments at experiences and evoke consciousness- Chavín. Inscribed objects with visual altering experiences in others, including the markings expressive of their creators, the emotional entrainment observed in some Chavín pututus visually projected identities ritual performance.154 The breath-pattern of individuals, polities, or places. These control required for virtuosic techniques features are certain, regardless of how we such as circular breathing has the potential interpret their significance. Given their to create both immediate and lasting Andean situation, anachronistically applying physiological changes in performers,155 the term huacas/huacos to the Chavín pututus relating to flow-state alterations in is not inappropriate: the potential power of consciousness and trancing. Performing these pututus is material, as evinced by their a pututu creates both auditory and haptic creation three millennia ago. The actual feedback for the performer, a multimodal power of pututus at Formative Chavín experiential activation of spatial- was manifest through ritual performance, instrumental acoustical interdynamics. perhaps in the symbolic interconnection Pututus performed together—or even of water with air, a cosmological gesture: a pututu performed with another

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 53 soundmaker—can produce acoustical reinforced by echoes that ricochet among wave-interference effects such as the wall surfaces, such as around the Plaza amplitude variation called “beating,”156 and Mayor, commanding attention or enhancing also the psychoacoustical effect known as cognitive entrainment, among other effects. “difference tones,”157 an auditory distortion Heightened sensitivity to acoustics— of sound alternately understood as auditory be it via psychological priming from hallucination: given particular stimuli, the Chavín’s multimodal messaging strategies, auditory system generates the perception psychotropics/entheogens, flow-state con- of tones that are not present acoustically. centrations of auditory/sound-sensing Such experiential transformations induced attention, or other forms of experiential via pututu performance parallel—and could conditioning—would have further induced have co-enhanced—the botanically induced immersion in Chavín’s transformational psychotropic/entheogenic ritual evinced ritualscape, for both pututu performers and through a variety of Chavín materials. their followers. Performing pututus elicits environ- Elite social status could be gained via mental responses—especially acoustical these ritually operational conch-shell horns; feedback, heard and felt—that in Chavín those capable of performing pututus would ritual would have reinforced the sense be differentiated from others with physical of emplacement in a unique and specific access to pututus but without the ability environment. In outdoor and semi-enclosed or privilege of playing them. Performance contexts, discrete echoes from large walls and ability and knowledge of certain techniques— landform rockfaces repeat pututu soundings especially how to optimize acoustical and thus reiterate their voicings.158 Within interactions in each performance setting for Chavín’s interior, architectural acoustical culturally valued or sensorially captivating resonances amplify pututu sounding tones effects—would have demonstrated prowess and prolong the lower-frequency intonations and legitimized the pututu performer’s readily created by the performance technique special access to this elite power tool. Via the of inserting one’s hand in the bell/shell leveraging of spatial-instrumental acoustics, lip,159 thereby extending the length of the sonic communication could be facilitated by instrument’s bore/interior cone to create an those adept at manipulating Chavín’s ritual acoustical transformation of the instrument communication technologies. Sociopolitical that produces lower tonalities. In key power dynamics could be reinforced via ceremonial locations, pututus may have compulsory acoustical conditions created produced specifically encoded messaging: by Chavín architecture. Through acoustical duct acoustics emphasize pututu sound design, Chavín pututu performers were transmission between the Lanzón Gallery ensured sonic communication between and the Circular Plaza, filtering out higher otherwise physically separated locations. frequencies and allowing sounds in the The pututu as a Chavín-optimized com- fundamental range and first articulation peak munication technology (and reciprocally, of the Chavín pututus to pass, effectively Chavín architecture, as a pututu-leveraging making any non-pututu sounds pututu- environment) facilitated an elite form of like.160 Noisy, wind-like breath sounds virtual spatial access and control between and rhythmic percussive articulations are architecturally distinct site locations.

54 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) Pututu performance, a ritual technol- them—indicates our interpretative priorities ogy and tool for individual differentiation and associative proclivities. How we deal at Chavín, could transform humans into with these exceptional artifacts of human superhuman controllers of an ancient expression reflects our present-day values, virtual world created by humans, for epistemological alignments, and individual humans; a ritualscape whose cosmological concerns. Time has repositioned the Chavín and religious meanings remain encoded, pututus to inform us about the people who yet whose material associations offer once used them in specific relationships interpretative clues. Chavín exemplifies with each other and their environments, concerns highlighted in present-day discus- enacting ecological and cosmological sions of the Anthropocene: its material interventions through the creation, ritual culture expresses conceptualizations of handling, and performance of pututus. human-ecological influence enacted in The Chavín pututus call to us out of context, the prehistorical Andes, especially via yet their present recontextualizations its Strombus pututus. Converging forms provide us new opportunities to honor their of archaeological evidence suggest that prior significance while engaging with them through ritual soundings, Chavín pututu on new terms, as is the trajectory of lasting performers served as transcendental agents material culture, and its transformative of human–environmental relations. In potential across time. Engaging with the my interpretation, a Strombus pututu, an Chavín pututus even as they appear out of extension of human breath—positioned time highlights the potential of archaeology to influence Andean ecology through its as it intersects with current issues: curiosity wind-water associations and multifaceted about previous lives on Earth, and Chavín contextualizations—injected human contemplation regarding the relevance of agency into the hydrologic cycle. Through those lives to living and future humans. pututus, Chavín expressed and communi- Emblems of Chavín, Strombus pututus cated relationships in a way that legitimized evince prowess in communicative nuance, Chavín, mediating between forms of both as soundproducers and as ritual being and ecological processes, perhaps technologies in Andean Formative world- understanding them on a continuum. building by which humans sought to Surpassing their archaeological repu- supersede humanness and influence tation as sound-signaling devices and ecological processes. Vocal proxies for visual indicators, the Chavín pututus were those who once performed them, the technologies of anthropic ecological inter- Chavín pututus resound with us today, ventions in their time. Today, they retain the harkening a future in which human– power to attract and direct our attention: what environmental negotiations will be as we notice about these carved marine shells— crucial to human survival as they were in and the associations we construct around the ancient Andes.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 55 NOTES

1 For my purpose of anthropological discussion, 5 As in discourse around “transhumanism,” I take an ecological perspective on the usage of the which varies from physical augmentations of humans term Anthropocene: that anthropic environmental to complete virtualizations of human intelligence- transformations reciprocally impact human society as-consciousness; e.g., Max More and Natasha as well as other life forms, on local and global scales, Vita-More, The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and across varying time scales. Dominant threads in Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and discourse around the Anthropocene include the “Earth Philosophy of the Human Future (Chichester, UK: systems science” definition, e.g., as discussed by Will Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Steffen (Nov. 11, 2016) in a lecture at the Stockholm 6 Following architectural discussions in Silvia Resilience Center: https://www.stockholmresilience. Rodríguez Kembel and John W. Rick, “Building org/research/research-videos/2016-11-01-the- Authority at Chavin de Huantar: Models of Social anthropocene-where-on-earth-are-we-going.html. Organization and Development in the Initial Period Here, Steffen interrelates the “Human Enterprise,” and Early Horizon,” in Andean Archaeology, Blackwell measured by population, economic growth, freshwater Studies in Global Archaeology, ed. Helaine Silverman use, energy use, urbanization, globalization, transport, (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2004); John W. and communication, with the “Earth System” measured Rick, “Chavin de Huantar: Evidence for an Evolved via greenhouse gases, ozone depletion, climate, marine Shamanism,” in Mesas & Cosmologies in the Central ecosystems, coastal zone, nitrogen cycle, tropical forest, Andes, ed. D. Sharon, San Diego Museum Papers, vol. land systems, and biosphere integrity. The epochal 44 (2006): 101–111 and my archaeoacoustical treat- assignment “Anthropocene” has been contested by ment of Chavín as framed by explorations of sonic geological scientists who assert that humans have not communication: Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.” significantly altered the earth’s stratigraphy, as defined 7 As detailed in Miriam A. Kolar, with John W. by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Rick, Perry R. Cook, and Jonathan S. Abel, “Ancient largest and oldest constituent scientific body in the Pututus Contextualized: Integrative Archaeoacoustics International Union of Geological Sciences: http:// at Chavín de Huántar, Perú,” in Flower World – Music www.stratigraphy.org/ (accessed Jan. 28, 2019). Archeology of the Americas, vol. 1, ed. Arnd Adje Both 2 I previously introduced the Chavín and Matthias Stöckli (Berlin: Ekho Verlag, 2012), “ritualscape” concept to encompass the experiential 23–53; and Miriam A. Kolar, “Acoustics, Architecture, possibility space of ritually related elements and Instruments in Ancient Chavin de Huantar, constructed, practiced, and otherwise dynamically Peru: An Integrative, Anthropological Approach to engaged at Chavín: Miriam A. Kolar, “Sensing Archaeoacoustics and Music Archaeology,” in Music Sonically at Andean Formative Chavín de Huántar, & Ritual: Bridging Material & Living Cultures, ed. R. Perú,” Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Jimenez, R. Till, and M. Howell (Berlin: Ekho Verlag, Consciousness and Culture 10/1 (2017): 39–59. doi: 2013), 147–62. 10.1080/1751696X.2016.1272257. 8 As argued by Miriam A. Kolar in 3 As presented in the multi-authored article “Archaeological Psychoacoustics at Chavín de Huántar, with corresponding authors Erle Ellis and Perú” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2013). Lucas Stephens of the ArchaeoGLOBE Project, 9 The United Nations Educational, Scientific “Archaeological Assessment Reveals Earth’s Early and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines Transformation through Land Use,” Science 365/6456 Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) online: https://ich. (2019): 897–902. doi:10.1126/science.aax1192. unesco.org/en/what-is-intangible-heritage-00003 4 For example, as discussed regarding the (accessed March 5, 2019). 2018 decision of the International Commission on 10 Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making Stratigraphy (ICS) to declare a new age within the of the Human Mind (New York: Random House, Holocene epoch, the Meghalayan, rather than naming 2007), 104. a new epoch, as advocated by many scientists. The 11 E.g., the cross-disciplinary methodology article compares perspectives of researchers in several I have detailed regarding sound studies in Inca fields. Paul Voosen, “New Geological Age Comes archaeology: Miriam A. Kolar, “Situating Inca Sonics: under Fire: Timing and Extent of Ancient Drought Experimental Music Archaeology at Huánuco Pampa, Used to Define the Meghalayan Are Uncertain,” Peru,” in Flower World – Music Archaeology of the Science 361/6402 (2018): 537–38. doi:10.1126/ Americas, vol. 6, ed. Matthias Stöckli and Mark Howell science.361.6402.537. (Berlin: Ekho Verlag, 2019), 11–43.

56 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 12 In the archaeological literature, archaeologist 18 Recent findings with new interpretations and science theorist Michael Brian Schiffer exemplifies are detailed in John W. Rick, “The Nature of Religious a rigorous approach to modeling experiential features Space at Chavín de Huántar,” in Rituals of the Past: from materials: see, e.g., his “Research on Technology: Prehispanic and Colonial Case Studies in Andean History and Overview,” in Behavioral Archaeology: Archaeology, ed. Silvana A. Rosenfeld and Stefanie Principles and Practice, ed. Michael Brian Schiffer L. Bautista (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, (London and Oakville: Equinox Publishing, 2010), 2017), 21–50. 89–90. 19 In a conservation publication, John Rick and 13 For an overview of archaeoacoustical field colleagues noted Chavín’s dynamical environmental methods, with Chavín examples, see Miriam A. Kolar, positioning and negotiation: “In order to demonstrate “Archaeoacoustics: Re-Sounding Material Culture,” their power, local leaders intentionally built Chavin Acoustics Today 14/4 (2018): 28–37. in a zone of high risk of hillside creep, massive 14 Among many pertinent examples, a landslides, and river flooding. They were successful functional example from a cognitive archaeological in overcoming nearly all of these challenges, but in perspective is the routinization of joint/communal the end the site was seriously damaged, probably performance common to many religious musical by seismic action” (p. 1). John Rick, John Hurd, participation contexts, as discussed by Robert Turner, and Julio Vargas-Neumann, “Chavín de Huántar, who argues for music “as ritualized language” (pp. a Past Challenge to Nature, a Current Challenge 37–38) in “Ritual Action Shapes Our Brains: An Essay to Archaeological Conservation,” paper presented on Neuroanthropology,” in Ritual, Performance and the at the 11th International Conference on the Study Senses, ed. Michael Bull and Jon P. Mitchell (London and Conservation of Earthen Architecture Heritage, and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 31–44. In an Universidad Católica del Perú, 2012. examination of the social functionality of religious 20 Luis G. Lumbreras, Chaco Gonzalez, and music, ethnomusicologists Philip V. Bohlman and Bernard Lietaer, “Acerca de la función del sistema Jeffers Engelhardt critique the intellectual and hidraulico de Chavin,” Investigaciones de campo, no. scholarly assumptions that underlie “the ubiquitous 2 (Lima: Publicaciones del Museo Nacional de pairing of music and religion as reified entities in our Antropologia y Arqueologia, 1976); John W. Rick, scholarship” (p. 4). Their framing calls attention to the “Context, Construction, and Ritual in the Development diverse ways that religious sound crosses boundaries of Authority at Chavín de Huántar,” in Chavín: Art between individual experience and social contexts, Architecture and Culture, ed. William J. Conklin and proposing that “it follows that transcendence ends Jeffrey Quilter, Monograph 61 (Los Angeles: Cotsen up exclusively in the domain of religion, irrespective Institute of Archaeology, University of California, of the fact that, as a category, religion sets in motion Los Angeles, 2008), 3–34; Rick, “Evidence for an an acoustic dialectic of the sacred and the wordly and Evolved Shamanism”. might encompass too much or not enough of people’s 21 Daniel A. Contreras, “Landscape Setting as spiritual, musical, moral, and social lives” (p. 5). “An Medium of Communication at Chavin de Huantar, Introduction,” Resounding Transcendence: Transitions Peru,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25/2 (May in Music, Religion, and Ritual, ed. Jeffers Engelhardt 2015): 525, and “Sociopolitical and Geomorphologic and Philip V. Bohlman (New York: Oxford University Dynamics,” “(Re)Constructing the Sacred,” and Press, 2016), 1–25. “Diversity in Ritual Architecture.” 15 Discussed previously in Kolar, “Sensing 22 Rick, “Context, Construction, and Ritual in Sonically.” the Development of Authority,” 32. 16 Daniel A. Contreras, “Sociopolitical and 23 Rick, “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism,” Geomorphologic Dynamics at Chavin de Huantar, 110. Peru” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2007). 24 Of which there are substantial extant Contreras’s detailed study evaluated “the material examples that have been interrelated in Chavín remains of the anthropogenic landscape associated research and with archaeoacoustical detail; e.g., with the site to explore Chavin’s interaction with and Rick, “Context, Construction, and Ritual in the perception of its environment, and consider the role of Development of Authority”; Kolar et al., “Ancient the dynamic environment, and modification thereof, Pututus Contextualized”; Kolar, “Archaeological in the site’s sociopolitical trajectory” (p. 4). Psychoacoustics at Chavín de Huántar, Perú” and 17 Specific local examples discussed in Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.” “Archaeological Psychoacoustics at Chavín de Huántar, Perú,” 58-62.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 57 25 Referred to in some literature as a “Strombus expressions that may incorporate or reference these trumpet,” following colloquial and non-musical usage media (a new chain of representations, with material (e.g., Rick, “Context, Construction, and Ritual in the relationship by way of produced sound). For details Development of Authority”); although in musical on the presence and distribution of pututus in Andean acoustics terms, such conical-interior instruments are archaeology, there is a notable survey of over 200 horns, whereas trumpets have cylindrical bores that pututus of shell and ceramics, by Alexander Herrera, open in a flare. Juan Pablo Espitia Hurtado, Jorge Gregorio Garcia 26 John W. Rick, “The Evolution of Moncada, and Alejandro Morris, “Arqueomusicologia Authority and Power at Chavin de Huantar, Peru,” de las trompetas de caracol andinas de concha y in The Foundations of Power in the Prehispanic Andes, ceramica: Distribución, organologia y acustica,” Flower Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological World—Music Archaeology of the Americas, vol. 3., ed. Association 14 (2004), ed. Kevin Vaughn, Dennis Matthias Stöckli and Mark Howell (Berlin: Ekho Ogburn, and Christina A. Conlee, 71–89. Verlag, 2014), 141–68. 27 However, this distinction may be updated 31 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextual- pending analyses of new research. During the 2019 ized”; Kolar, “Acoustics, Architecture, and Instruments field season, the director of the Museo Nacional in Ancient Chavin de Huantar, Peru.” Chavín called to my attention a ceramic “trumpet” 32 Miriam A. Kolar, “Pututus, Resonance associated with the early 20th-century site research and Beats: Acoustic Wave Interference Effects conducted by renowned Peruvian archaeologist Julio at Ancient Chavin de Huantar, Peru,” The Journal C. Tello, and also invited me to conduct an acoustical of the Acoustical Society of America 136: 2270. and musical performance study of carved bones that doi:10.1121/1.4900202. Presented at the 168th had previously been characterized as snuff tubes, meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, but were re-identified as sound producers. Our Indianapolis (November 2014). Popular version of investigation of these objects, pending publication, paper 4pAAa2: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/ offers new acoustical and performance evidence for chavin/ASA2014.html. other classes of aerophones associated with Chavín, 33 Sadie Weber, “El Pututu,” ReVista: Harvard beyond pututus. Also, post-Chavín settlements Review of Latin America, “Music” (Winter 2016): at the site may have produced ceramic whistles, 44–45. objects to be further studied from excavations of 34 Although non-tonal performance of horns remains identified in fieldwork as “Mariash-Recuay” is known as applying “extended techniques” in by archaeologists Lumbreras and Rick (personal European musicology and contemporary art music, communication, 2012). such practices are common in other traditions. 28 Henry Tantaleán, Peruvian Archaeology: A 35 Kolar et al.,“Ancient Pututus Contextual- Critical History, trans. Charles Stanish (Walnut Creek: ized”; Kolar, “Acoustics, Architecture, and Instruments Left Coast Press, 2014), 157. in Ancient Chavin de Huantar, Peru.” 29 In present-day colloquial usage around 36 Research conducted by Kolar with Andean Chavín de Huántar, in the Ancash region of Perú, huaco colleagues in 2019 at the Museo Nacional Chavín; (object) is often differentiated fromhuaca (place); publication pending. the former to designate a tangible artifact associated 37 Martha Paola Acosta-Diaz, “À propos de with an archaeological site, or any other cultural la conque andine: Organologie, fonctionnement et material associated with the distant past, though sons de la conque de Hatun Q’ero (Cusco, Perou)” both carry spiritual or metaphysical associations. (Master’s thesis, University of West Paris / Memoire More broadly in the Andes, this distinction may de Master 2 Ethnomusicologie et Anthropologie de also be common usage, as per discussion about la Danse, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, nomenclature surrounding huaquero: https:// Paris, 2015). traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/terminology/ 38 Anthropologist and Andean music specialist huaquero-2/ (accessed March 11, 2019). Michelle Bigenho has described this problem as “the 30 My definition, here, raises a question about music box: within anthropology’s classificatory schemes, how to consider the recorded “intangible cultural” the music concept tends to overpower everything reproductions of archaeological engagements with the else. Even if studies pose key questions about state Chavín pututus that are now circulating as electronic restructuring, law, nationalism or racism, once music media, such as audio and video recordings of research enters the picture, the whole inquiry is pushed into performances, as well as the derivative creative the music box. Music as an object of study ends up

58 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) haunting such projects, even when researchers are 47 E.g., Rick, “The Evolution of Authority and asking other questions of broader interest.” “Outside Power,” 79, 86. the Music Box: A Manifesto,” Anthropology News, 48 Alexander Herrera Wassilowsky, “Pututu January 2011: 12. and Waylla Kepa: New Data on Andean Pottery Shell 39 Including their infrequent performance Horns,” Studien zur Musikarchäologie 7 (2010): 57, as background accompaniment to electronically ed. Ricardo Eichmann, Ellen Hickmann and Lars- amplified/featured sonics, as during the inaugural Christian Koch. event in Chavín’s Plaza Mayor for the 2019 “Simposio 49 John W. Rick, Augusto E. Bazán, and Miguel Internacional Chavin: 100 años de Arqueologia Ortiz, “Chavín: Camino al centro del mundo,” 2nd ed., desde Julio C. Tello hasta nuestros dias: Avances y ed. Lisseth Rojas Pelayo; graphic novel produced by Perspectivas,” Aug. 9–10, 2019, Chavin de Huantar, the Programa Arqueológico Chavín de Huántar, with Áncash, Perú. support from the Compañia Minera Antamina (Lima, 40 See Kolar, “Situating Inca Sonics,” for a Perú, 2017 [2015]), 37, 49, 55–57. discussion of pututu historicization, in the context 50 Mélanie Ferras, “Les pututu de Chavin of experimental music archaeology at the Inca de Huantar (Ancash, Perou): Theâtralisation, administrative center, Huánuco Pampa, a UNESCO reactualisation et pouvoir,” 124-Sorbonne, Carnet de World Heritage site in Perú. l’École Doctorale d’Histoire de l’Art et Archeologie, 41 Mónica Gudemos, “Trompetas andinas Sorbonne University Letters, 2018: https://124revue. préhispanicas: Tradiciones constructivas y relaciones hypotheses.org/journees-doctorales/2018-2/ de poder,” Anales del Museo de América 17 (2009): archeologie/melanie-ferras (accessed Dec. 15, 2018) 184–224. (author’s translation). 42 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextu- 51 Lumbreras et al., “Acerca de la Función del alized”; Kolar, “Situating Inca Sonics.” Sistema Hidraulico de Chavin”; Luis G. Lumbreras, 43 The 1615 autograph manuscript facsimile, Chavín: Excavaciones arqueológicas, vols. 1 and 2 annotated transcription, documents, and other (Lima: Universidad Alas Peruanas, 2007). digital resources are available on the Guaman Poma 52 Nathaniel Parker VanValkenburgh, “The website of the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark: Sound of Interregionalism in the Late Initial Period http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/ and Early Horizon: Twenty Strombus galeatus frontpage.htm, with the iconic depiction of a pututu Trumpets from Chavin de Huantar, Perú” (Honors performed by an Inca chaski (messenger) on drawing thesis, Stanford University, 2003). 138/page 352 of the text: http://www.kb.dk/ 53 John W. Rick, “Innovation, Religion and permalink/2006/poma/352/en/text/ (accessed Nov. Authority at the Formative Period Andean Cult Centre 14, 2018). of Chavín de Huántar,” in Religion and Innovation: 44 Gudemos, “Trompetas andinas préhis- Antagonists or Partners? ed. Donald A. Yerxa (London panicas.” and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), and 45 Anna Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska, El poder “The Nature of Religious Space.” del sonido: El papel de las crónicas españolas en la 54 Mélanie Ferras, “Pratiques musicales et etnomusicologia andina (Cayambe: Ediciones Abya- sonores des Andes centrales préhispaniques: Une Yala, 1995), 129–30. contextualisation archéologique et sociale” (Ph.D. 46 Mónica L. Gudemos, “Huayllaquepa: diss., Université Paris Sorbonne, 2019). El sonido del mar en la tierra,” Revista española de 55 VanValkenburgh, “The Sound of Inter- antropología americano 31 (2001): 101 (author’s regionalism.” translation). Gudemos’s seminal study of Moche 56 Cook et al., “Acoustic Analysis of the pututus relates coastally provenanced ceramic Chavín Pututus,” 13; Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus instruments to their marine-shell precursors. For Contextualized,” 32–33. a detailed musical acoustics discussion of relevant 57 VanValkenburgh, “The Sound of Inter- performance physics, see Neville H. Fletcher and regionalism”; Ferras, “Les pututu de Chavin de Thomas D. Rossing’s chapter “Lip-Driven Brass Huantar.” Instruments,” which describes the mechanics of lip- 58 VanValkenburgh, “The Sound of Inter- valve performance, detailing how lip tension and regionalism.” breath pressure allow a player to control the sounding 59 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextu- of natural horns and trumpets; in Fletcher and Rossing, alized,” 32. The Physics of Musical Instruments, 2nd ed. (New York: 60 Ibid. Springer Science+Business Media, 1998), 455–58.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 59 61 For other examples, refer to the Chavín 75 Weismantel, “Seeing Like an Archaeolo- pututus pictured on pp. 338–39 of the Rietberg gist,” 147. Museum’s exhibition catalog, edited by Peter Fux, 76 Ferras, “Les pututu de Chavin de Huantar.” Chavín: Peru’s Enigmatic Temple in the Andes (Zurich: 77 As posed by VanValkenburgh (“The Sound Scheidegger & Spiess, 2013). of Interregionalism”), discussed by Kembel and Rick 62 Richard Burger, Chavín and the Origins of (“Building Authority at Chavin de Huantar,” 70) and Andean Civilization (London: Thames and Hudson, further explored by Ferras (“Les pututu de Chavin de 1995 [1992]), 146–49. Huantar”). 63 Rebeca Carión Cachot, “La cultura Chavín: 78 John W. Rick, “Religión y Autoridad en Dos nuevas colonias Kuntur Wasi y Ancón,”. Revista del Chavín de Huántar,” in Chavín, ed. Peter Fux, Spanish Museo Nacional Antropología y Arqueología 2/1 (1948). version of Rietberg Museum catalog adapted for the 64 John H. Rowe, Chavin Art: An Inquiry Peruvian Exhibition at the Lima Art Museum (Lima: into Its Form and Meaning (New York: University Asociación Museo de Arte Lima, 2015), 179. Publishers, 1962). 79 Contreras, “Sociopolitical and Geomor- 65 Donald W. Lathrap. “Gifts of the Cayman: phologic Dynamics.” Some Thoughts on the Subsistence Basis of Chavín,” 80 Rick et al., “Chavín de Huántar, a Past in Pre-Columbian Art History, ed. Alana Cordy-Collins Challenge to Nature.” and Jean Stern (Palo Alto: Peek Publications, 1977), 81 E.g., discussions by Richard L. Burger, 241–67. “Chavín de Huántar and Its Sphere of Influence,” in 66 Henning Bischof, “Context and Contents Handbook of South American Archaeology, ed. Helaine of Early Chavín Art,” Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Silverman and William H. Isbell (New York: Springer Culture, ed. William J. Conklin and Jeffrey Quilter, Science+Business Media, LLC, 2008), 681–703; and Monograph 61, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology (Los Mesía-Montenegro, “The Discovery of the Temple.” Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, 2008), 82 Rick et al., “Chavín de Huántar, a Past 107–41. Challenge To Nature.” 67 Peter G. Roe, “Recent Discoveries in 83 Lumbreras et al., “Acerca de la Función del Chavin Art: Some Speculations on Methodology and Sistema Hidraulico de Chavin” (author’s translation). Significance in the Analysis of a Figural Style,” in 84 Burger, “Chavín de Huántar and Its Sphere Chavin Art, Museum of Anthropology Miscellaneous of Influence,” 681. Series No. 48 (Greeley, CO: University of Northern 85 The Chavín de Huántar Archaeological Colorado Museum of Anthropology, 1983), 1–41. Acoustics Project website is https://ccrma.stanford. 68 Gary Urton, “The Body of Meaning in edu/groups/chavin/. Chavin Art,” in Chavin: Art, Architecture, and Culture, 86 A recently discovered Strombus Lobatus 217–36. galeatus pututu during the 2018 field season brings 69 Mary Weismantel, “Seeing Like an Archae- the total now excavated to 21, documented in a 2019 ologist: Viveiros de Castro at Chavín de Huántar,” acoustical and performance study I conducted with Journal of Social Archaeology 15/2 (2015): 139–59. Peruvian colleagues, pending publication. 70 Rowe, “Chavín Art.” 87 David Lubman, “Archaeological Acoustic 71 Constantino Manuel Torres, “Chavín’s Study of Chirped Echo from the Mayan Pyramid at Psychoactive Pharmacopoeia: The Iconographic Chichén Itzá,” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Evidence,” in Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture, America 104 (1998): 1763. doi:10.1121/1.424061. 239–59; Weismantel, “Seeing Like an Archaeologist.”. 88 Published as both David Lubman and 72 Rick has discussed this extensively: e.g., John W. Rick, “On the Use of Strombus Trumpets “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism,” and “Innovation, Found at the Ancient Peruvian Center Chavin de Religion and Authority.” Huantar,” presented by Lubman at the First Pan 73 E.g., discussions by Alana Cordy-Collins, American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics, Cancun, “Chavin Art: Its Shamanic Hallucinogenic Origins,” Mexico (2002); and John W. Rick and David in Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings, ed. Lubman, “Characteristics and Speculations on the Alana Cordy-Collins and Jean Stern (Palo Alto: Peek Uses of Strombus Trumpets Found at the Ancient Publications, 1977), 353–62; and Torres, “Chavín’s Peruvian Center Chavín de Huántar,” The Journal of Psychoactive Pharmacopoeia.” the Acoustical Society of America 112 (2002): 2366. 74 Torres, “Chavín’s Psychoactive Pharma- doi:10.1121/1.4779586. copoeia,” 257.

60 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 89 Our 2008 preliminary archaeoacoustical 99 Kembel and Rick, “Building Authority at fieldwork and pututu documentation at Chavín was Chavin de Huantar,” 69. the only group visit by the initial Stanford acoustics 100 Rick, “The Evolution of Authority and team for a project that has incorporated researchers Power,” 79. of many different affiliations through both musical 101 Kembel and Rick, “Building Authority at acoustics and archaeology connections. My leadership Chavin de Huantar,” 66–67. of this project resulted in my relocation to the Andes 102 Contreras, “Sociopolitical and Geomor- for four years during my doctoral studies. phologic Dynamics,” 244. 90 Perry R. Cook, Jonathan S. Abel, Miriam 103 Daniel A. Contreras, “Landscape Setting A. Kolar, Patty Huang, Jyri Huopaniemi, John as Medium of Communication at Chavin de Huantar, W. Rick, Chris Chafe, and John M. Chowning, Peru,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25/2 (May “Acoustic Analysis of the Chavin Pututus (Strombus 2015): 525. galeatus Marine Shell Trumpets,” The Journal 104 Rick, “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism.” of the Acoustical Society of America 128: 2359. 105 Christian Mesía-Montenegro, “Intrasite doi:10.1121/1.3508370. Presented at the 160th Spatial Organization at Chavín de Huántar during meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Cancun, the Andean Formative: Three Dimensional Modelling, Mexico, November 2010. Stratigraphy and Ceramics” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford 91 Music archaeologist Arnd Adje Both has University, 2007). corroborated these observations in his study of 106 Christian Mesía-Montenegro, “The Dis- Mesoamerican conch trumpets, citing organologist covery of the Temple, and Early Attempts at Curt Sachs’s 1940 discussion of the range of Interpretation,” in Chavín: Peru’s Enigmatic Temple in techniques observed ethnographically: “While wind the Andes, 124. sounds can be produced by breathing through the 107 A comprehensive examination of human trumpet and gurgling sounds by shaking a shell communication modalities is given by Ruth Finnegan, filled with water, the instrument can also be used Communicating: The Multiple Modes of Human as a megaphone and voice distorter by breathing, Communication, 2nd ed. (Oxon and New York: speaking or singing through the blowing hole, Routledge, 2014). supposedly one of the oldest techniques of using the 108 Rick, “The Nature of Religious Space,” 45. shell” (p. 267). In “Shell Trumpets in Mesoamerica: 109 As documented for the Strombus pututu Music-Archaeological Evidence and Living Tradition,” calibration measures in Miriam A. Kolar, R. Alan Studien zur Musikarchäologie IV, ed. Ellen Hickmann Covey, and José Luis Cruzado Coronel, “The and Ricardo Eichmann (Rahden,Westphalia: Verlag Huánuco Pampa Acoustical Field Survey: An Marie Leidorf, 2004), 261–77. Efficient, Comparative Archaeoacoustical Method 92 Tito La Rosa’s breathing-into-pututu for Studying Sonic Communication Dynamics,” technique can be heard in his research performance Heritage Science 6/9 (2018). doi:10.1186/s40494- of Chavín pututus included as the soundtrack to 018-0203-4. Also measured in 2017–18 fieldwork the “context” video about Chavín archaeoacoustics at Chavín, using replica horns made from Strombus by José L. Cruzado Coronel and Miriam A. Kolar: Lobatus galeatus as studied by Cook et al., “Acoustic https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/chavin/video/ Analysis of the Chavín Pututus…” which fit within Chavin.m4v. the characteristics range of Chavín pututus; detailed 93 As discussed in Abel et al., “On the Acoustics in Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextualized.” of the Galleries,” and Kolar, “Pututus, Resonance and 110 Rick, “Context, Construction, and Ritual Beats.” in the Development of Authority,” 32. 94 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextual- 111 Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.” ized”; Kolar, “Archaeoacoustics.” 112 Rowe, “Chavín Art.” 95 John W. Rick, “Innovation, Religion and 113 Tom Cummins, “The Felicitous Legacy of Authority,” 24. the Lanzón,” in Chavín: Art, Architecture and Culture, 96 Rick, “The Nature of Religious Space,” 23. 279–304. 97 Rick, “Innovation, Religion and Author- 114 Kembel, “Archaeological Sequence and ity,” 12. Chronology.” 98 Silvia Rodriguez Kembel, “Architectural 115 Rick, “Context, Construction, and Ritual Sequence and Chronology at Chavin de Huantar, Peru” in the Development of Authority,” 32. (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2001). 116 Multimodal messaging in the ritual context at Chavín is the topic of Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.”

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) 61 117 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contex- 137 Abel et al., “On the Acoustics of the ualized,” 44. Galleries,” 1. 118 As suggested in a discussion of Chavín 138 See discussion in Kolar et al., “Ancient propaganda, Kembel and Rick, “Building Authority at Pututus Contextualized,” 27–28. Chavin de Huantar,” 69. 139 An acoustical discussion of pututus and 119 Kolar, “Pututus, Resonance and Beats.” windshear is given in Kolar et al., “The Huánuco 120 Ibid., https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/ Pampa Acoustical Field Survey.” chavin/ASA2014.html. 140 For a discussion of Chavín under- 121 Ibid.; as demonstrated in this documen- ground engineering, see the discussion in Rick, tation of experimental music archaeology research “Context, Construction, and Ritual in the conducted by Miriam Kolar and José Cruzado: https:// Development of Authority,” 10–20. See also the ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/chavin/ASA2014/Fig10_ proposed environmental-actor/negotiation model Kolar_Cruzado_PututusResonanceLaberintos_3312_ with sociopolitical interpretations in Daniel Alexander byKolar.m4v. Contreras, “(Re)Constructing the Sacred: Landscape 122 A brief theoretical framing of the adoption Geoarchaeology at Chavin de Huantar, Peru,” of these principles from psychology to experimental Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 9/6 (2014). archaeoacoustics is given in Kolar, “Situating Inca doi:10.1007/s12520-014-0207-2. Sonics.” 141 I introduced a discussion of the multimodal 123 Kolar, “Archaeological Psychoacoustics at context for sonic icons at Chavín (following Peirce) in Chavín de Huántar, Perú,” 58. Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.” 124 Rick, “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism.” 142 For example, the vertical shafts with small 125 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: ledges at their bases just west of the conservation- The Politics of Participation (Chicago and London: roofed opening of the Rocas canal on the terrace at the University of Chicago Press, 2008), 4, 30–31, 233. northeastern corner of Building A, not far from the 126 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Evolving Circular Plaza. Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium (New York: 143 Cataloged as “Artifact 1, Level 3, Cor. A, Harper Collins 2018 [1993]), xi. W-1,” discussed on p. 49, and shown in Figs. 54, 127 Ibid., 185–86. 55, and 56 (p.50-51) of Proyecto deIinvestigación 128 As explored in the ethnographical, Arqueológica y Conservación en Chavín de Huántar, multidisciplinary discussion by Judith Becker, Deep Boletín de fin de temporada de campo 2014, ed. John Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (Bloomington: W. Rick and Augusto E. Bazán (Huaraz: Asociación Indiana University Press, 2004). Ancash, 2014); hereafter cited as PIACCdH 2014. 129 Ibid., 161. 144 Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica y 130 Ibid., 1. Conservación Chavin de Huantar (PIACCdH), Boletín 131 Rick, “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism.” de fin de temporada de excavaciones 2013 (PIACCdH: 132 Cordy-Collins, “Chavin Art: Its Shamanic Lima, 2013); hereafter cited as PIACCdH 2013. Hallucinogenic Origins”; Torres, “Chavín’s Psycho- 145 Kolar et al., “The Huánuco Pampa active Pharmacopoeia.” Acoustical Field Survey,” 22–23. 133 Rick, “Evidence for an Evolved Shamanism” 146 See discussions of the Chavín pututus’ and “Context, Construction, and Ritual in the acoustical radiation analysis in Cook et al. “Acoustic Development of Authority.” Analysis of the Chavín Pututus,” 8–11, and Kolar et 134 Turino, Music as Social Life, 43. al., “Ancient Pututus Contextualized,” 31. 135 Art historian Rebecca Stone describes 147 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contex- jaguar-trance shamanism and associated mimetic tualized,” 31–34. rattles in The Jaguar Within: Shamanic Trance in Ancient 148 As detailed in the ethnographic, icon- Central and South American Art (Austin: University of ographic, and historical discussion of Inca queros and Texas Press, 2011), 122–24. pacchas (drinking vessels) by Catherine J. Allen, “The 136 “Each shell was excited with ‘impulses’ Incas Have Gone Inside: Pattern and Persistence in made by the player rapidly slapping his open palm Andean Iconography,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics onto the shell mouthpiece, and continuing to hold 42 (Autumn 2002): 192. the palm firmly there to keep the shell end closed 149 Ferras, “Les pututu de Chavin de Huantar” until the impulse response in the bore died away (a (author’s translation). few hundred milliseconds maximum)” (Cook et al., 150 Considering current debates about the “Acoustic Analysis of the Chavín Pututus,” 4). functionality of hypothetical hydraulic mechanisms

62 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 5, No. 2 (2019) at Chavín, I wish to clarify that by site hydraulics, I 156 Kolar, “Pututus, Resonance and Beats.” mean water-flowing structures, whether actuated via 157 As discussed in the context of pututu engineered systems or through the manual pouring of performance in Herrera et al., “Arqueomusicol- water over and through site architecture. ogia de las trompetas de caracol andinas de concha 151 Kolar, “Sensing Sonically.” y ceramica,” 158. 152 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contex- 158 See discussion of echo studies at Chavín in tualized”; Kolar, “Archaeological Psychoacoustics at Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contextualized,” and also Chavín de Huántar, Perú,” “Acoustics, Architecture, in Kolar, “Archaeoacoustics.” and Instruments in Ancient Chavin de Huantar, Peru,” 159 As demonstrated by Tito la Rosa in and “Pututus, Resonance and Beats.” this research performance at the Museo Nacional 153 See summary discussion of rhythmic Chavín, documented by Cobi van Tonder for entrainment in Becker, “Deep Listeners,” 127–29. the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological Acoustics 154 Turner, “Ritual Action Shapes Our Brains,” Project in 2008: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/ 44. chavin/ASA2014/Fig6_VIDEO_TitoLaRosa%20_ 155 Tiffany Peng, C. Douglas Phillips, performsChavinPututu_byCVT.m4v. Jonathan P. Dyke, and Michael G. Stewart, “Mechanics 160 Kolar et al., “Ancient Pututus Contex- of Circular Breathing in Wind Musicians Using tualized.” Cine Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques,” Laryngoscope 125/2 (2015): 412–18.

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