The purpose of this research is to examine the historical, technical and social significance of the bipolar siku of Peru, particularly as regards the projection of Peruvian panpipe orchestras in the culture of Peru and of the world at large. The plan of the research will be to set forth a technical description in musical terms of the siku and a positioning of the instrument from a historical perspective, and then to discuss the sociocultural implications of Andean music in modern Peruvian society, as well as the symbolic characteristics of the instrument in respect of sundry sikuri traditions, functions, and most important cultural meanings.
The siku (also sicu), is a variety of Peruvian panpipe used by indigenous peoples of the southern Colla (also Aymara) group in the region of Oruru.«FN1«LM8»«RM73» Robert Stevenson, Music in Aztec & Inca Territory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) 333.
» This region is part of the Collao Altiplano, also called Altiplano, which is an Andean plateau that extends over part of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. It takes in Lake Titicaca, the northern and western shores of which are situated in Peru.
Panpipe is the name given to a primitive wind instrument, typically a reed or cane instrument, that comprises "a series of hollow pipes of graduated length, the tones being produced by blowing across the upper ends."«FN1«LM8»«RM73» Random House Webster's College Dictionary (1992), s.v. "Panpipe."
» The cane medium is most typical in the modern period, although pre-Columbian archeology shows that pipes and flutes of varying styles were constructed of clay, shell, and bone.«FN1«LM8»«RM73» Samuel Marti, Music Before Columbus, 2d ed., ed. Gunhild Nilsson (Perugino, Mexico: Ediciones Euroamericanas Klaus Thiele, 1978), passim.
» Panpipe styles that are in modern use have their provenance in pre-Columbian cultures, and although they appear to be constructed exclusi...