ÖÖI 8x 3 ^c- 0 - Acehbooks.org

i6o SUMATRA.
are call in fets regularly tuned to thirds, fourth, fifth, and odave, and
often ferve as a bafe, or under part, to the calintang. The fooken isthe
Malay flute. The country flute is called ferdum. It is made of
bamboo, is very imperfeót, having but few flops, and refembles much
an inftrument defcribed as found among the people of Otaheite. A
Angle hole underneath, is covered with the thumb of the left hand, and
the hole neareft the end at which it is blown, on the upper fide, with a
finger of the fame hand, The other two holes are flo^t with the right
hand fingers. In blowing they hold it inclined to the right fide. They
have various inftruments of the drum kind, particularly thofe called
tinkah, which are in pairs, and beaten with the hands at each end. They
are made of a certain kind of wood hollowed out, covered with dried
goat fkins, and laced with fplit rattans. It is difficult to obtain a proper
knowledge of their divifion of the fcale, as they know nothing of it
in theory. The interval we call an oétave, fecms to be divided with
them into fix tones, without any intermediate femitones, which muft
confine their mufic to one key- It confifts in general of but few notes,,
and the third is the interval that moil frequently occurs. Thofe who
perform on the violin, ufe the fame notes as in our divifion,. and they
tune the inftrument, by fifths, to a great nicety. They are fond of
playing the odtave, but fcarce ufe any other chord. The Sumatran tunes
very much refemble, to my ear, thofe of the native Irifh, and have ufually,
like ihem,, a flat third»
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