Kuisi: Colombian musical instrument

A kuisi “ or kuizi” is a native American musical instrument that belongs to the family of  fipple or duct flute. The musical instrument was made from a hallowed cactus stem, with a beeswax and charcoal powder mixture for the head of the instrument, having a thin quill manufactured from the feather of a large bird for the mouthpiece of the instrument. Seagull, turkey and eagle feathers are the commonly used feathers.

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There are male and female versions of the musical instrument. The female kuisibunsi that is also called as kuisibundji in Spanish is commonly known also as a gaita hembra in Spanish language. This version of the musical instrument has 5 holes; the male kuisisigi or kuisiazig is also called gaita macho in Spanish language and has two holes.

The players of the musical instrument often make use wax to close finger holes and alter the sound of the flute, blocking one or other tone finger hole that is on the kuisisigi and on the kuisibunzi either the lower or the upper finger hole so that only four finger holes of the musical instrument can be used at any one time. The change of wax from one finger hole to another alters the fundamental tone and series of overtones that can be produced from the instrument. A photograph of the paired flutes of the Cuna Indians of panama shows that their hembra possesses only four finger holes on it.

Modem versions of the musical instrument are between 70 cm and 80 cm long, a length that is traditionally defined by the arm length of the luthier Kogi built kuisi are accounted to be up to 2 feet, or 60 cm long and carved from cane Carrizo by the player of the instrument himself never a woman. A woman is not permitted to play this musical instrument. The length of the musical instrument is being measured as three times the span between lengthy thumb and little finger plus the span between lengthy thumb and index finger. The finger holes of the musical instrument are being located with a distance between them and measured by the width of two fingers plus half the width of the thumb finger. The musical instruments are carved from a cactus that is uninterested and whose thorns are cut. The center of the cactus is removed, first moistening and then boring with the use of an iron stick. The cactus stem is thicker at one of its extremes; this will go upside and coupled with the bee wax head that carries the feather mouth piece of the instrument. Though the musical instrument is slightly conic on the outside, its perforation is cylindrical.

The kuisibunsi possesses five tone holes, but only four of them are being used when playing the musical instrument; the lower tone hole is rarely used, but when used, the upper tone hole is closed with the wax. The lower tone hole of the musical instrument is barely used.

The head of the musical instrument is called ‘afotuto’ in Spanish language, the afotuto is produced with bee wax mixed with charcoal powder to prevent the wax melting in high temperatures that also give the head of musical instrument its characteristic black color. The mouth piece of the instrument, a quill manufactured from a large bird feather, is covered in this bee wax-charcoal head, with an angle and a distance to the edge of the air column that alters from musical instrument to musical instrument.

Since construction of the instrument is not sequential, the only musical instrument that matches the tuning of a particular kuisibunsi “female” is the kuisisigi “male” built to go simultaneously with it. The position of the two tone holes of the musical instrument matches the position of the lower tone holes of the female version of the instrument and their lengths tallies.

The earliest known use of this musical instrument is among koguise and Ika of Sierra Navada de Santa Marta. Analogous flutes are also played in matched pairs by the Kuna people or Cuna that live around the Darien Gulf in both Panama and also Colombia.

The male and female versions of this musical instrument are traditionally performed as a pair in counterpoint to one another; the kuisisigi normally marking the beat and the kuisibunsi playing the melody. The musical instruments are usually accompanied by drums and the maraca. The player of the kuisisigi recurrently holds the musical instrument in one hand and a maraca in the other, performing both instruments at the same time.

In the lower angle of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, for instance, the Spanish speaking village of Atánquez, analogous flutes are known as carrizors from the name of the cane from which the instruments are produced, and because of that, the collaborative is named ‘Conjunto de carrizos’. This musical instrument, conjunto, accompanies the dancechicote, a circle dance in which men and women alternate, placing their arms on each other's shoulders while dancing.

On the coastal plain, for example the town of San Jacinto, Bolívar, an ensemble that is called the conjunto de guitas usually provides the melody for the cumbiaporro, and other folk patterns like vallenato. This collaborative made up of two duct flutes “gaitas”, a maraca and two hand-beaten drums that are of African descent.

A Colombian historian writing in 1865, Joaquín Posada Gutiérrez,memoriashistoricopoliticas, Bogotá: ImprentaNacional, 1929 has been quoted by Aquiles Escalante, El negro en Columbia, Monograflassociologicas no. 18, Bogota: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1964, 149. on the fusion of Native American, African and European musical instruments and music cultures:

In the early part of the 19th century there were great festivities in honor of the patron saint of Cartagena that at that time was the principal province of the region. At this festival the inhabitants of some wealth and position danced in a building to accompany the regimental band. Those that are of the lower classes took part in one of two dances held in the open air. The dancers in one were blacks and pardos and in the second were Indians. The blacks and pardos took part in a circle dance of couples, much like the well-known cumbia of that century. The dance of the Indians, on the other hand was a closed circle, where men and women substituted and joined hands, a dance analogous to the closed circle of the chicote as danced in Atánquez. The dance of the blacks was also accompanied by two or three hand-beaten drums and a chorus of women who clapped their hands while singing. The dance of the Indians was as well accompanied by gaitas. By 1865, these two castes had lost their joint hostility and joined together to dance what was then known as the ‘mapale’. Players of gaitas and the players of drums joined together to accompany this dance. This coming together was probably the origin of the conjunto de guitas.