A nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyvei 53. (Nyíregyháza, 2011)

Régészet - Csajághy György: Híradás a legújabban előkerült avar sípról

Csajághy György pipes) inform us about the music of Avars. Accordingly, owing to the bone material, the analysis of the Avar pipes that survived more than a thousand years in the ground offers an opportunity to gain at least a partial piece of information about Avar music. Items similar to the Nyíregyháza pipe but double, have already been found by archaeologists. The sites in Hungary are Jánoshida, Alattyán (two instruments at the latter site), Felgyő, Balatonfűzfő, Rácalmás Tatabánya, Szegvár, Kunmadaras and beyond the border: Oszőny, Bijelo Brdo, Hisztria. The common trait of these musical instruments is the bone as raw material. Where the source could be determined it was the tibia of the grey crane apart from a single item (Jánoshida), which was made from the ulna of a crane. Avar pipes and typologically similar instruments are generally double with five holes on both pipes. The ones with different numbers of holes are either spoiled or injured items. Regarding the diverse holes of the Avar pipes, some people supposed instrumental music for two voices, but due to various reasons, these ideas are basically disputable. It partly comes from the circumstance that in the music in the East, be it vocal or instrumental, it is generally monophonic or homophonic. This musical feature roots partly in the mentality of eastern people and the coordinative way of thinking. At the same time, the former ideas on polyphony are not uniform either since the supposed polyphonic character played on Avar pipes was conceptualised in different ways with different tonalities. Dénes Bartha musicologist supposed a drone technique, which was not clearly determined. But he only analysed the Jánoshida whistle, from which he drew the consequence that all Avar pipes were similar to the one he knew. According to archaeologist Nándor Fettich pipes of diverse hole numbers and a variety of drone techniques were used for various tunes. However, this idea cannot be justified since it seems improbable that various polyphonic varieties existed in the same type of instrument within a given nation. Fettich's mistaken and yet unproven idea can be traced from the conviction that he derived Avar pipes and the connected musical culture from the German Gepids and considered them as adoptions from the western musical culture. Based on analogues we can state, that most of the finds of Avar pipes are plain double pipes sounded with simple (clarinet-like, reflex) reeds or partly ones without bags. The Nyíregyháza item probably belonged to this type similarly to the Oszőny instrument. The so-called "Komárom" pipe was also simple, which, although belonged to a different type (made from a vulture [Gyps fulvus] bone), was closely related. The single pipes probably helped the learning of the use of the instrument (or they were spoiled during production). Avar pipes were common musical instruments of the Avar musical culture although the few pipe finds as compared to the large number of the uncovered graves do not seem to support it. The reason can be that gray crane bones were used only in regions close to water, while most of them were made from wood or reed. It is also possible that the use of gray crane bones had cultic reasons beside practical ones since the traces of gray crane cult can be demonstrated in several eastern cultures and also in the Hungarian folklore. The modem Hungarian relatives of the Avar pipes, especially the simple items, are the well known reed pipes of shepherds and the Hungarian bagpipe types, which were more evolved than the Avar ones but had a similar structure (or the bagpipe type of the Carpathian Basin that various peoples probably adopted from the Hungarians). György CSAJÁGHY e-mail: csajaghygy@invitel.hu 130