The Hummingbird Clue |
by Daniel K. Statnekov |
Copyright ©1990 Daniel K. Statnekov |
There exists a gold artifact, made by artisans from an extinct culture,
the Chimú, who in ancient times lived on the north coast of what
is now Peru. The artifact is the modeled statue of a man, a deity perhaps,
crowned with a semi-circular headdress of gold filigree set with turquoise
and jade stones. Radiating lines of repoussé in the headdress connect
each stone with the figure's head, and in his hands, which are clasped in
front of him, he holds a beaker. From each side of the headdress, next
to the statue's ears, dangle tiny hummingbirds, also made of gold. In the
absence of a written language left by the Chimú, or identifiable
descendants of this now-vanished civilization, there is no definitive explanation
of who this figure was, or what deity he might represent. But there are clues.
The attitude of the figure is ceremonial. Certainly, the manner in which he
clasps the beaker conveys the posture of a man in ritual. Could this be a
participant in an ancient rite of communion? Does the flask contain a
concoction of Ayahuasca or San Pedro cactus, two of the more efficacious
hallucinogenics known to the Chimú? Perhaps the repoussé lines
that radiate from the statue's head have something to do with the emanation
of thought, and the jade or turquoise disks where the lines terminate are
symbolic of consciousness raised to the spiritual dimension that the minerals
represent. Why couldn't jade have served as the same symbol for the Chimú
as it does for the Chinese? In China, jade has always been a symbol for heaven.
Another clue that might give us a glimpse into the little statue, are the
tiny hummingbirds.
Consider the sound of the hummingbird as it flies or hovers overhead: a low
pulsating flutter, as if a large night butterfly - drawn to the light - beats its
powdered wings against the glass. The hummingbird's sound is unique in
nature, but - interestingly - the Chimú knew how to reproduce it.
Following a tradition that had existed for more than a thousand years,
Chimú potters fashioned ingenious ceramic bottles that whistle
when you blow into them, and when played in concert, create a sound
that is most succinctly described as the low fluttering sound of a hummingbird
in flight.
If we accept the premise that the pre-Columbian representations that
modern people classify as "art" are symbols meant to convey meaning, then the
hummingbirds that dangle next to the ears of the statue could symbolize
a special importance ascribed to hearing the sound of hummingbirds.
In any case, it is a singular occurrence: the hummingbird adornment at
the ears of the gold statue, and the discovery of pottery whistles - made by
the same people who fashioned the statue - that replicate the unique sound
of hummingbirds.
There is evidence to suggest that this is not a coincidence. An acoustical
analysis of whistling bottles fashioned by nine Andean civilizations (encompassing
a time span of two thousand years) determined that the whistles were tuned
within a discrete range of frequencies. The UCLA study
also quantified a
unique auditory phenomenon that takes place when whistles from any one
culture are played together. Most intriguing is the discovery that this auditory
phenomenon takes place only within the hearing apparatus of the listener.
The sound that is perceived when listening to the pottery whistles is not
a sound that can be measured in an acoustics laboratory. The tones interact
in a unique way that is perceived by the human brain because of our specialized
auditory circuitry.
The whistles are not musical instruments, either. In most instances, the entire
range of tones produced by any single culture is less than half an octave, and
there is no reported instance of the whistles being played in any of the pre-Columbian
musical forms that have survived.
There is little doubt that they are psycho-acoustical devices, but how were they
employed? Were they used by the Chimú and other pre-Columbian
cultures to effect consciousness? If so, then why isn't anything known about
these instruments, and why has it taken nearly five hundred years to rediscover
them?
One possible answer is that the whistles were a secret.
Certainly, they weren't used for a secular purpose. They weren't whistles to
call birds, for instance. But there is reason to believe that they were designed
to effect the mind, instruments that were an element in an arcane, or hidden,
psycho-spiritual technology, known only to an elect. Everything we know about
the high civilizations of the Andes supports this: society was hierarchical, there
was a deep belief in a spiritual reality, and knowledge was closely held within
a highly stratified priesthood.
The conquest of the Incas in 1532 utterly disrupted pre-Columbian society and
the indigenous priesthood to which the higher reaches of experience belonged were
primary victims of that disruption. It is likely that the hidden traditions became
even more obscure with the arrival of the Conquistadors. The task of the clerics
from Spain who accompanied the conquerors was to establish the church and in
the process, stamp out every vestige of Indian superstition. If the whistles were
an element in the Indian's scientific or religious tradition, they were probably
known only to an elect, and it is also probable that the conquest obliterated
whatever usage these devices served, along with the people who used them.
In retrospect, the discovery of an ancient acoustical technology in Peru doesn't
seem so strange. The Andean area is a fertile ground for students of the
mysterious. The Nazca lines suggest a high level of mathematical abstraction,
trepanned skulls are evidence of sophisticated medical procedure, and there
are enigmatic masonry constructions throughout the region. For centuries,
travelers to the old Inca Empire have been mystified by megalithic stone works,
such as the great wall at Sacsahuaman near Cuzco, where sculpted rocks the size of
pickup trucks are set into a wall that staggers the rational mind. Numerous fanciful
explanations have been proposed for how the rocks were shaped and moved into position,
but one legend that persists is that the huge, shaped stones were split along
precise harmonic lines with sound alone and then "resonated" into position.
The ancient whistling vessels are excellent candidates for instruments used
in a pre-Columbian acoustical technology. By themselves, each whistle is
not remarkable. The sound that they make approximates the sound made by
the whistle of a tea kettle at full boil. What is noteworthy about the ancient
whistles is the interaction of their sounds. Because they are very closely pitched,
when they are played together they create low frequency difference tones or
"beat" frequencies in the brain. These are perceived as a low, fluttering hum,
a sound that most closely resembles the sound of a hummingbird in flight.
Acousticians categorize these sounds as "phantom" tones that do not have a
reality in the physical dimension. They are only created by our hearing apparatus
and our brain. They are a creation of consciousness.
If we were looking for a mechanism to access uncharted regions of our minds,
"phantom" sounds would be an excellent candidate. Their effect is to
hearing, what the old 3-D movies were to vision: remember the spear thrown
by some befeathered aborigine? It came right out of the movie screen and
into the theatre. That's the way the sounds of the Chimú whistles feel
in the brain. When a half-dozen or more of these whistles are played together
the effect is aural 3-D that floods the mind with the sound of oceans and wind,
the murmur of voices speaking in tongues, and a sensation that feels like
no-voltage electricity surging from one side of the skull to the other. The
totality of the effect gives participants a sense of the space inside of their
head, and the tides of sound seem to sweep the mind clear of thought.
Carson Jeffries, Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley
(where else?), has proposed a tentative model to explain how the unusual
effect of the whistles might influence brain wave configurations and
consequently, consciousness. Jeffries explains that beat frequencies are
very close to the frequencies displayed in an EEG tracing of brainwave
activity which vary from approximately 20 cycles per second (random,
normal consciousness), to about 9 cycles per second (alpha waves observed
in people in meditative states), all the way down to 5 to 6 cycles per second
(creative state).
Jeffries hypothesis is that the beat frequencies are so close to the electrical
signals that the brain itself generates, that the addition of an acoustical stimulus
at a brainwave frequency might be responsible for a change in consciousness.
The mechanism at work would be "electrical interference" between the
brainwave voltage and the voltage generated by the sound stimulus. Another
hypothesis is that the unique sound stimulus might "entrain" the EEG frequency,
i.e. control the frequency that the brain uses for its gross activity, changing it
to the beat frequency generated by the whistles.
The idea that conscious "tuning" of brain function may be possible is no longer
an idea proposed only by science-fiction writers. Biofeedback has demonstrat-
ed that human beings can gain conscious control over parts of themselves
that were previously thought inaccessible. EEG to computer linkups have
enabled people to activate mechanical devices through thought alone. The
hypothesis that Peruvian whistling bottles were also intended to effect con-
sciousness does not seem so strange given their effect on modern people.
If the ancient whistling bottles were the instruments for a pre-Columbian psycho-
acoustical technology, then it is exciting to contemplate that modern people may
eventually reconstruct the old knowledge. The tiny gold hummingbirds that dangle
next to the ears of the Chimú figurine may be a clue to the Inca treasure that
still awaits our discovery.
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