Some of the earliest whistles and whistle pendants that I assembled included facial features and complete faces…it isn’t an original idea at all but it is definitely fun. The “Playing by Ear” whistle on the right is a favorite concept that needs to be revisited…but not now. Small whistles happen by a campfire when small pieces are about the only things that I feel comfortable transporting in a delicate, greenware condition and frankly, a campfire is not a pleasant image in Middle Tennessee’s unseasonably hot weather (I regress).
So last night while procrastinating over a honey-do list and watching The Fugitive for the umteenth time, a subconscious acknowledgment the face-in-a-flute concept happened. 
This little guy’s face seemed to find his way out of the time-consuming texturing and finger-hole placement and into the world. The usual curly handle of this series of ocarinas somehow sprouted a nose…and the next thing you know, he is a full octave, primordial faced, ocarina.
Dr. Bowen has been jabbering about broken flutes discovered at Uxmalico… something about captured breath that enters a flute being transformed into something ethereal. Today’s technology can explain the harmonic vibrations that occur when a column of air splits at the fipple of an instrument and produces a tone. For ancient Mesoamericans, wouldn’t it make sense that the transformation of human breath into something god-like via a magical implement would be logical?…and the act of breaking a flute at a burial site could represent the unbinding of a last breath to release the departed into an afterlife. Ahhh, theory and mystery…more, later from Dr. B.
