Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our series on whistling.
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we talked a bit about how
Speaker 1: whistling works physically, what happens when you're creating a sort
Speaker 1: of resonator cavity within the mouth. We also talked about
Speaker 1: the whistle speech of the Maze Taco languages in Wahaka
Speaker 1: in Mexico, and I wanted to start off today's episode
Speaker 1: by talking about some other examples of whistled languages and
Speaker 1: some of the common characteristics between them, because, of course,
Speaker 1: the Maze Teco whistle speech is not the only example
Speaker 1: of a whistled language that carries information. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was looking at a paper by an author named Julian
Speaker 1: Meyer called Environmental and Linguistic Typology of Whistled Languages in
Speaker 1: the Annual Review of Linguistics. It's a very recent paper,
Speaker 1: uh And according to Meyer, there are reports of more
Speaker 1: than eighty languages around the world that contain a whistled lexicon,
Speaker 1: and about half of those have been confirmed by formal
Speaker 1: studies and published recordings, so really solid documentation of at
Speaker 1: least forty or so whistled languages around the world, And
Speaker 1: so I think it's worth mentioning a few more examples
Speaker 1: of these and describing how they work and seeing what
Speaker 1: we can compare and contrast with them. So one example
Speaker 1: I was reading about was in a really interesting article
Speaker 1: in BBC Travel by Elliott Stein, and the story here
Speaker 1: goes like this. In Greece, there is a remote mountain
Speaker 1: village called Antia, which is found on the southern an
Speaker 1: eastern coast of the Greek island of Evia in the
Speaker 1: Aegean c And within this village there has long been
Speaker 1: a whistle based language called Sphyria, which allows speakers to
Speaker 1: communicate across great distances, and it seems to have been
Speaker 1: passed down from parents to children among the shepherds and
Speaker 1: the farmers of the village for literally thousands of years,
Speaker 1: for more than two thousand years to read from Stein
Speaker 1: here quote. But in the last few decades, antias population
Speaker 1: has dwindled from two hundred and fifty to thirty seven,
Speaker 1: and as older whistlers lose their teeth, many can no
Speaker 1: longer sound sphery as Sharp notes today there are only
Speaker 1: six people left on the planet who can still speak
Speaker 1: this unspoken language. Now this was five years ago as
Speaker 1: of this recording, so I don't know how that number
Speaker 1: six has changed since then. There there are descriptions of
Speaker 1: some efforts to try to teach it to more people. Um,
Speaker 1: but of whenever you're talking about a language with that
Speaker 1: few speakers, it it's certainly extremely endangered. In fact, this
Speaker 1: is considered one of the most endangered languages in the world. Now.
Speaker 1: Apparently the existence of this language sphery A here was
Speaker 1: not documented anywhere in the outside world until the year
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, when a plane crashed in the mountains
Speaker 1: nearby and there was a rescue team that was attempting
Speaker 1: to locate the pilot and they reported hearing strange, melodious
Speaker 1: whistling echoing through the hillsides. And this led to investigation
Speaker 1: and brought the language to the attention of the media
Speaker 1: and to academics. Uh So, a big question here is
Speaker 1: where does a language like this come from. Linguists do
Speaker 1: seem to agree that it dates back to ancient times.
Speaker 1: It's been around for a long time, but exactly how
Speaker 1: it was created is less certain, uh and apparently local
Speaker 1: legends abound. So one story I came across this was
Speaker 1: described in in some detail in a documentary piece on
Speaker 1: PBS News Hour that was about Sphyria, and it claimed
Speaker 1: that the language was invented about two thousand five years ago,
Speaker 1: not by Greeks, but by Persians after they were defeated
Speaker 1: at the Battle of Salamis. So Salamus was a battle
Speaker 1: in four a d b c. During the Persian invasion
Speaker 1: of Greece under zerk Sees the Great, and so Salamus
Speaker 1: was a It was a naval battle where the coalition
Speaker 1: of Greek city states was able to fight off and
Speaker 1: defeat the larger Persian allied fleet. And I think this
Speaker 1: is widely considered the battle, or one of the battles
Speaker 1: that turned the tide of the war in favor of
Speaker 1: the Greek defenders and pushed back the Persian invasion. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the legend about the whistle speech goes that the Persian
Speaker 1: survivors of the battle I guess they were, you know,
Speaker 1: their their ship was sank or defeated in some way
Speaker 1: and they managed to swim to shore on the island
Speaker 1: of Evia, where they had to survive hiding in the
Speaker 1: mountains inhabited by hostile native Greeks, and one way they
Speaker 1: avoided detection was by coming up with a way of
Speaker 1: speaking in whistles that would sound just like the birds,
Speaker 1: so they could they could communicate with each other, but
Speaker 1: their speech would not be intelligible and in many ways
Speaker 1: would probably not even be detected. But that that story
Speaker 1: has a kind of legendary quality. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: much there is behind that so, but but it's a
Speaker 1: great story nonetheless, and and steinsite some other local legends
Speaker 1: as well. Some residents believe it was invented during the
Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire by locals who wanted a secret way to
Speaker 1: communicate that would elude the understanding of pirates and people
Speaker 1: from hostile nearby villages. And so a common theme here
Speaker 1: seems to be the idea that somehow this language was
Speaker 1: created to be a secret way of communicating, to allow
Speaker 1: the locals to communicate across distance and understand each other
Speaker 1: without other people detecting or understanding what they were saying. Now,
Speaker 1: the author of this BBC Travel piece describes visiting the
Speaker 1: village and spending time with with the handful of people
Speaker 1: there who still use the whistle language, and they apparently
Speaker 1: use it in many of the same scenarios described in
Speaker 1: that paper on the Massa Teco whistle speech that I
Speaker 1: talked about in the last episode, A big scenario of
Speaker 1: you seems to be communicating across great distance on the
Speaker 1: mountain side and sort of greeting or summoning people from
Speaker 1: far away. And Stein cites a Greek linguist named Demitra
Speaker 1: Hanggen who studies Spheria, and she says that Sphoria is
Speaker 1: in some sense a whistled version of spoken Greek, where
Speaker 1: specific whistled tones correspond to specific phonetic syllables or letters,
Speaker 1: and you can build words out of them. Now, again,
Speaker 1: this is another way that it's similar to the Massa
Speaker 1: Teco example, because in both cases the wistled language is
Speaker 1: not like an uh totally independent, unique language. Instead, it
Speaker 1: is in some way adapting an existing spoken language two whistles,
Speaker 1: and of course that would lean us more towards the
Speaker 1: Greek origin story as opposed to the Persian one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought about that, but I don't know if it
Speaker 1: actually informs that one way or another. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: had the same intuition at least. So one of the
Speaker 1: most remarkable things about Sphyria, again similar to the mesa
Speaker 1: Teco whistle speech example, is that it is intelligible at
Speaker 1: a great distance. You can understand messages in Sphyria up
Speaker 1: to about four kilometers away on this mountainous terrain, which
Speaker 1: Hangen says is about ten times farther than you can
Speaker 1: usually understand speech, loud speech or shouting. And I saw
Speaker 1: that number of the ten times distance multiplier mentioned in
Speaker 1: other sources, such as a Cambridge University press paper that
Speaker 1: I looked at. But there's a great part in this
Speaker 1: article where Stein quotes a local shop owner named Maria Kafalas,
Speaker 1: who tells a story about some of the like the
Speaker 1: social opportunities offered by the whistle speech. And so her
Speaker 1: story goes like this quote. One night a man was
Speaker 1: in the mountains with his sheep when it started snowing.
Speaker 1: He knew that somewhere deep in the mountains there was
Speaker 1: a beautiful girl from Antia with her goats. So he
Speaker 1: found a cave, built a fire and whistled to her
Speaker 1: to come keep warm. She did, and that's how my
Speaker 1: parents fell in love. Well, that is a better ending
Speaker 1: than something like and then the descendants of of of
Speaker 1: Persian soldiers slaughtered him in the woods, so I will
Speaker 1: say that much. Yeah, and then the Greeks finally came
Speaker 1: for revenge. Yeah. I continue to just have a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about the Persian origin theory. It just seems
Speaker 1: like it seems and I could I could be missing
Speaker 1: something major here, but it seems like it begs more
Speaker 1: questions than it answers. Well. Yeah, as as I said,
Speaker 1: it sounds more like legend to me than like an
Speaker 1: strongly evidence based explanation. I agree, away from being a
Speaker 1: full blown ghost story. But but so I've described two
Speaker 1: examples here of whistled language in detail, and as I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, there are many others around the globe. There
Speaker 1: are something like eighty ish that have been reported somewhere
Speaker 1: around forty of them are very well documented. So an
Speaker 1: obvious question to ask is what do these languages have
Speaker 1: in common? What causes a whistled language to arise? So
Speaker 1: I was looking at a few sources here. One of
Speaker 1: them is that paper in the Annual Review of Linguistics
Speaker 1: by Julian Meyer already mentioned. Another is a an article
Speaker 1: in Smithsonian magazine from one by Bob Holmes, which cites
Speaker 1: that paper and summarizes some other research in this area,
Speaker 1: for example, focusing on a whistled variant of Spanish that
Speaker 1: is used in the Canary Islands, on the mountainous islands
Speaker 1: of Lagomera and Elierro in uh they're both in the
Speaker 1: Canary Islands. And that paper by Julian Meyer tries to
Speaker 1: gather together all of these languages and say, okay, are
Speaker 1: there common topic, graphical or or sort of geographical features
Speaker 1: that these languages tend to have in common? And he
Speaker 1: finds yes, indeed there are almost all of the whistled
Speaker 1: languages occur in two different types of environments, either in
Speaker 1: mountainous terrains rugged mountains, or in dense vegetation like dense
Speaker 1: forest or dense savannah. So why would it be those
Speaker 1: two places, mountains or in dense vegetation. Well, to focus
Speaker 1: on mountains first, Myer writes that in mountainous terrain, settlements
Speaker 1: and the people living in the mountainous terrain tend to
Speaker 1: be much more scattered across larger distances that are more
Speaker 1: difficult to travel verse quickly than people in other types
Speaker 1: of topographical settings. So uh here, so Meyer writes quote
Speaker 1: in Aliero and Lagomera, in the Canary Islands, in the
Speaker 1: region around kush Koy in Turkey, in the High Altars,
Speaker 1: or in the Pyrenees near the village of Os two points,
Speaker 1: only five dred meters apart can easily represent an hour
Speaker 1: in walking time. Thus, whistled forms of languages serve as
Speaker 1: soon as the spoken forms become ineffective between forty and
Speaker 1: a hundred meters. Depending on terrain, whistles can be heard
Speaker 1: up to seven kilometers away in some valleys. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the idea here is that in mountainous terrain you have
Speaker 1: the problem of people are often situated farther apart from
Speaker 1: each other, and those distances to cross are difficult to cross.
Speaker 1: They take a long time. So if you need to
Speaker 1: communicate actually coming to be close enough together that you
Speaker 1: could understand each other by shouting, would that's along? That's
Speaker 1: a big time investment. So it's actually worth your time
Speaker 1: to learn a whistle speech that will carry better across
Speaker 1: longer distances and save you all of that climbing and
Speaker 1: walking time. Now, what about the forests or the dense vegetation. Well,
Speaker 1: here Myer writes quote the vegetation in dense tropical forests
Speaker 1: and savannah's restricts visual contact and limits the propagation of sound.
Speaker 1: In such contexts, Whistled speech frequencies are also well shielded
Speaker 1: against acoustic energy loss due to reverberation, which is particularly
Speaker 1: important in densely vegetated environments because the whistled frequencies belong
Speaker 1: to the most favorable frequency window, ranging from one to
Speaker 1: three kiloherts, within which reverberation in forests varies less with distance.
Speaker 1: In dense vegetation, whistled language facilitates the coordination of individuals
Speaker 1: during group movements, especially during hunting and fishing. Whistling all
Speaker 1: so allows human dialogue to go undetected by animals, blending
Speaker 1: in with natural sounds, since many animal species also use whistling.
Speaker 1: Other advantages are that whistles are easy to locate and
Speaker 1: difficult for strangers to recognize, especially other tribes, even those
Speaker 1: that speak different dialects of the same language. Whistled communications
Speaker 1: are used for distances from about ten ms up to
Speaker 1: five hundred meters, depending on the density of vegetation. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of advantages in the forest
Speaker 1: or thick savannah. So the idea is that, of course
Speaker 1: whistling speech allows you to communicate without being able to
Speaker 1: see each other. Sidelines are limited by the by the
Speaker 1: vegetation itself. But also whistling just carries better in the forest.
Speaker 1: It it propagates better through the forest without being drowned
Speaker 1: out by the sort of the the reverberation effects of
Speaker 1: having all that foliage there. Uh. And it also seems
Speaker 1: to pierce through and and sound much better. And Holmes
Speaker 1: also summarizes uh some of these advantages of whistling in
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian paper, saying that if you're good at whistling,
Speaker 1: and you've been practicing this all your life, sometimes you
Speaker 1: can reach a hundred and twenty decibels with a whistle,
Speaker 1: which is loud. That's like uh. He compares it to
Speaker 1: a car horn and says it's actually louder than a
Speaker 1: car horn. Um, and that whistles pack almost all of
Speaker 1: that energy into the perfect frequency range, the most piercing
Speaker 1: frequency range, which Holmes says is between one to four
Speaker 1: killer hurts. Meyer said between one to three killer hurts.
Speaker 1: But it's roughly the same space um, which Holmes says
Speaker 1: is above the pitch of most ambient noise. And this
Speaker 1: is interesting because I was thinking about, um, why do
Speaker 1: we keep noticing that whistling sounds, the ones made by
Speaker 1: humans are similar to birds song. Well, one thing that
Speaker 1: occurs to me here is that Earth's song is probably
Speaker 1: shaped by natural selection to propagate through vegetation and to
Speaker 1: cut through ambient noise from the environment so so as
Speaker 1: to be clear, you know, to be clear and audible
Speaker 1: at a distance where maybe a potential mate could hear it.
Speaker 1: So whistle speech probably sounds like birds song, having similar
Speaker 1: frequency ranges because similar forces are shaping them. In the
Speaker 1: case of birds, it would be evolution, and in the
Speaker 1: case of humans, it would be people intentionally selecting whatever
Speaker 1: noise they are able to make with their bodies that
Speaker 1: is the clearest at the longest distance, cutting through ambient noise,
Speaker 1: and and losing the least energy to reverberation in the forest.
Speaker 1: And that just happens to be the whistle that sounds
Speaker 1: like a bird. Yeah, yeah, this this is interesting to
Speaker 1: think think about it. On one hand, I'm a quiet whistler.
Speaker 1: My whistler, my whistle was not very loud, and therefore
Speaker 1: it can be a little surprising when I encounter someone
Speaker 1: who has a very loud whistle, and you reminded just
Speaker 1: how loud and whistle can be. So that's important to
Speaker 1: factor into all of this. And uh. And another connection
Speaker 1: that came up in some of the research I was
Speaker 1: doing was that you you end up encountering this whole
Speaker 1: realm of of non linguistic sounds that humans can make
Speaker 1: that can be used to communicate ideas or to to
Speaker 1: gain attention, etcetera. And you you also see things like
Speaker 1: yodeling thrown in there. Yodeling um also an art form
Speaker 1: if you will, or a performance are to sound that
Speaker 1: developed that also had to do with communicating or calling
Speaker 1: animals or or communicating with other herdsmen across across long
Speaker 1: distances in the wild. When you're trying to speak normal
Speaker 1: phonemes like we're using in words here, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that information probably easily gets lost to the distance.
Speaker 1: Like you might be able to hear that somebody is shouting,
Speaker 1: but you can't hear the difference between consonants. Are they
Speaker 1: making a T sound or a case sound like I
Speaker 1: don't know at a distance that that kind of all disappears.
Speaker 1: But if you're if you're judging more on sequences of pitches,
Speaker 1: then suddenly the confusion created by distance is reduced. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just yelling doesn't necessarily cut it, right, because if
Speaker 1: you can't, if you're particular words are not going to
Speaker 1: be overheard, then you might end up having to do
Speaker 1: something like just some sort of rhythmic barking. And if
Speaker 1: you're doing some sort of rhythmic barking, well why not
Speaker 1: further develop that and get somewhere and get to somewhere
Speaker 1: where it is yodeling or you shift over into a
Speaker 1: whistling uh, and that develops into some sort of a
Speaker 1: whistling language. So yeah, it's just the more you look
Speaker 1: at it, the more since it makes for this kind
Speaker 1: of purpose than Now, another thing going on with whistled
Speaker 1: languages is that, um, most of them, perhaps all of them,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure about that. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: say at least the vast majority of whistled languages appear
Speaker 1: to be not wholly independent languages of their own, but
Speaker 1: whistled versions of spoken languages. So this was true of
Speaker 1: all the examples I've talked about before. You know, the
Speaker 1: maze Teco whistle speech was a whistled variant of the
Speaker 1: tonal meze Teco language. Spherria appears to be a whistled
Speaker 1: system for encoding spoken Greek. The whistle speech system of
Speaker 1: the Canary Islands, called sill Bo, is a whistled version
Speaker 1: of Spanish, and so forth, and for this reason, one
Speaker 1: of the main differences in whistled languages appears to be
Speaker 1: whether they are encoding a tonal language or a non
Speaker 1: tonal language, and based on that distinction, the encoding process
Speaker 1: is different. Tonal languages tend to be whistled in a
Speaker 1: way that preserves the tones of the spoken words, and
Speaker 1: in the last episode we talked about tonal languages. Tonal
Speaker 1: languages where you know the syllables of the words, also
Speaker 1: carry information based on the tone you use when speaking them.
Speaker 1: So say like a high, high pitched version of the
Speaker 1: syllable MA means something different than a lower pitched version
Speaker 1: of the syllable MA, or an up gliding tone on
Speaker 1: that syllable, and so forth, like the tone of the
Speaker 1: syllable actually makes a difference. Uh, non tonal languages are
Speaker 1: not like so in in English, we we don't encode
Speaker 1: much information into the tones of syllables. It's just like,
Speaker 1: what are the vowels and consonants. Yeah, the tone can
Speaker 1: contain some information, but not nearly to the to the
Speaker 1: extent that you find in true tonal languages. Right. No,
Speaker 1: it's not not lexical information, more like, uh, maybe sort
Speaker 1: of contextual mood information or inflection. Like the difference between
Speaker 1: saying I would like you to walk the dog and
Speaker 1: I would like you to walk the dog. Well, that
Speaker 1: implies that maybe something the last time the dog was
Speaker 1: walked it was not it was not good enough, or
Speaker 1: it was or maybe you ran the dog, you know,
Speaker 1: like that, that sort of thing. But it doesn't change
Speaker 1: the actual yeah, uh information contained in the word. No,
Speaker 1: it's more like about the implied information about the attitude
Speaker 1: of the speakers, or I need you to walk the dog.
Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't walk the actual dog. Maybe you took
Speaker 1: some other creature or item from the house with you
Speaker 1: on the walk instead. Okay, so you've got a tonal
Speaker 1: language and you want to make a whistled version of
Speaker 1: that you In most cases, it seems like you preserve
Speaker 1: the tones of the spoken words. Non tonal languages that
Speaker 1: have whistled speech tend to involve a sort of approximation
Speaker 1: of consonants and vowels, and the Homes article I mentioned
Speaker 1: quotes the scholar Julian Meyer explaining that we already use
Speaker 1: subtle differences in frequencies to distinguish between spoken phonemes, like
Speaker 1: the differences between certain vowels and consonants. Uh So, think
Speaker 1: about the vowels E and O. A long E vowel
Speaker 1: sound has a higher pitch than along O vowel sound,
Speaker 1: and if you say them back to back, you can
Speaker 1: listen to the descending melody of those vowel sounds EO
Speaker 1: E O, And in fact, though it's harder to hear
Speaker 1: at first, the same is sort of true of consonants,
Speaker 1: like a T sound contains more high frequencies than a
Speaker 1: K sound, and these differences can to some extent be
Speaker 1: reproduced in whistles and uh So, the discussion of this
Speaker 1: in the article got me thinking about, even without having
Speaker 1: an established version of a language like this, and without
Speaker 1: any training, can you sort of attempt to whistle English
Speaker 1: phrases and have people understand what you're saying. In some
Speaker 1: cases you can. And I actually tried this out with
Speaker 1: my wife Rachel before we recorded here, I, Uh, this
Speaker 1: was a kind of weird exercise, but I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you tell what I'm saying here? And so I
Speaker 1: tried things like um, which she took a minute on
Speaker 1: but decided I was saying hello, nice to meet you,
Speaker 1: which is what I was trying to say. Uh, So
Speaker 1: that one worked a few other phrases I tried did
Speaker 1: not work as well, But the ones that really seemed
Speaker 1: to work immediately were the ones where it was phrases
Speaker 1: she had heard me say before, especially when I tried
Speaker 1: to whistle, common phrases that we use with our dog,
Speaker 1: so um immediately she heard as all buddy um. And
Speaker 1: I think this ties into something we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show before, the exaggerated musicality that humans tend to
Speaker 1: use when speaking to babies and pets for some reason. Uh,
Speaker 1: there may be evolutionary reasons for this, that we when
Speaker 1: we speak to cute things that need our care and attention,
Speaker 1: you know, babies or pets as kind of it might
Speaker 1: be creepy to think about them this way, but in
Speaker 1: to some extent kind of psychologically sir at babies, um,
Speaker 1: that we we speak with an exaggerated musicality or tonal
Speaker 1: variation that we don't use when speaking to adults, and
Speaker 1: that stereotyped phrases within this kind of highly musical speech
Speaker 1: are much easier to recognize when you try to whistle
Speaker 1: them instead of say them phonetically. So are you gonna
Speaker 1: keep whistling? Have you? Was it? Was it a big
Speaker 1: enough success? Oh? No, I think that would be a
Speaker 1: horrible idea. Also, strangely, the dog did not seem to
Speaker 1: get it. So when when I whistled all buddy Rachel
Speaker 1: could tell what I was saying, but but Charlie did
Speaker 1: not seem affected. I tried whistling to my cat whilst
Speaker 1: researching information for for these episodes, and yes, you didn't care.
Speaker 1: And my wife was like, like you, you can't speak
Speaker 1: to a cat and whistles. You have to use the
Speaker 1: kissy sound. That's what they understand. That's what that's the
Speaker 1: language they speak. It is known. But the kissy sound clicks,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are all these are not too far
Speaker 1: are removed from whistling. Some of these these types of
Speaker 1: sounds will come up again later on. Indeed. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting lines of thought emerging from all
Speaker 1: this is that some experts think that studying whistled languages
Speaker 1: might help us understand the origin of human language as
Speaker 1: a whole, because again, some linguists think that these whistled
Speaker 1: languages could be similar to the first languages that probably
Speaker 1: emerged in human evolution. Now why on earth would that be? Well,
Speaker 1: a couple of thoughts here. One. I just want to
Speaker 1: rate a passage from the Holmes article in Smithsonian quote.
Speaker 1: One of the big challenges for of language is the
Speaker 1: need to control the vocal chords to make the full
Speaker 1: range of speech sounds. None of our closest relatives, the
Speaker 1: great apes, have developed such control, but whistling maybe an
Speaker 1: easier first step. Indeed, a few orangutans and zoos have
Speaker 1: been observed to imitate zoo employee is whistling as they work.
Speaker 1: When scientists tested one ape under controlled conditions, the animal
Speaker 1: was indeed able to mimic sequences of several whistles. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's one line of evidence. Seems that our closest
Speaker 1: biological relatives are better able to imitate and reproduce sequences
Speaker 1: of whistled tones than they are to imitate and reproduce
Speaker 1: vocal phonemes like we make with speech. But There's another similarity.
Speaker 1: What is whistled speech especially good for it's communicating across distance,
Speaker 1: and as I mentioned earlier, especially in the densely vegetated
Speaker 1: contexts for hunting and fishing. And in these cases some
Speaker 1: but not all, of course, but some whistled languages tend
Speaker 1: to rely more on kind of formulaic sentences like you know,
Speaker 1: go that way, go toward it, etcetera, than than on
Speaker 1: like full lexical representation, which is also commonly thought to
Speaker 1: be how languages first emerged. That there were probably stereotyped signals,
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of more limited range of signals
Speaker 1: and ideas that you could express with sound that carried
Speaker 1: common meanings, before there was like a complete and endlessly
Speaker 1: variable lexicon where you could make a sentence meaning anything. However,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to point out that even if
Speaker 1: it's true that these whistled languages might have some things
Speaker 1: in common with the earliest proto languages, that does not
Speaker 1: mean that today's whistled languages are descended from any hypothetical
Speaker 1: whistled proto languages, Because if there were whistled proto languages,
Speaker 1: they long ago turned into speech, and then you know,
Speaker 1: many thousands of years passed, and then that speech in
Speaker 1: some cases transformed back into a whistled variant. Yeah so, so,
Speaker 1: sort of imagining like just the basic sounds one could
Speaker 1: make and how one might draw from that palette to
Speaker 1: communicate things. Some of those sounds become encoded, many of
Speaker 1: those sounds of at all those things. They evolve into
Speaker 1: more complicated forms. But then we we never completely forget,
Speaker 1: we never completely abandon these other modes of of of
Speaker 1: auditory communication, that the palette remains there for us to
Speaker 1: dip back into. Yeah. Yeah so. One last common feature
Speaker 1: of these whistled languages is that in basically all cases,
Speaker 1: with maybe a couple of exceptions, their uses declining. Most
Speaker 1: of them are disappearing, And so we might wonder why, well, uh,
Speaker 1: several causes are cited in in the homes article. One
Speaker 1: is strangely roads, you tend to find whistle speech only
Speaker 1: in places that are very remote, uh, And that apparently
Speaker 1: the presence of well paved roads tends to cause whistle
Speaker 1: speech to fall into disuse. Now you can imagine that
Speaker 1: could be for a couple of reasons. One could be
Speaker 1: well paved roads to a place increase the connection of
Speaker 1: that place to the rest of the world, So just
Speaker 1: sort of uh in the same way that sort of
Speaker 1: connection to global culture would cause the would tend to
Speaker 1: cause the disuse of all types of local customs, and
Speaker 1: so the whistle speech would just be one of them.
Speaker 1: But another reason I could think of is that, like
Speaker 1: we were saying earlier, a lot of the use for
Speaker 1: whistle speech tends to be communicating across distances that are
Speaker 1: difficult or time consuming to traverse. And if you make
Speaker 1: it easier to get from place to place in a
Speaker 1: shorter amount a shorter amount of time, there's probably just
Speaker 1: less incentive to whistle across great distances. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: also imagine that it's it's quite useful in communicating with
Speaker 1: the not yet seen. So if you're if you're having
Speaker 1: to travel traverse a distance and there are no roads involved,
Speaker 1: there's no reasonably fast travel, there's going to come a
Speaker 1: point where you're approaching somebody and maybe you can't even
Speaker 1: see them yet, and it might be nice to just
Speaker 1: sort of check in with them, uh into like and
Speaker 1: and the mere fact that they can they can speak
Speaker 1: the whistle language like gives you an amount of information
Speaker 1: on top of anything they provided in via the whistling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another hypothesized explanation for the decline of whistle speech, especially
Speaker 1: in places maybe like Brazil and Central Africa densely vegetated areas,
Speaker 1: is that deforestation seems to be playing a role in
Speaker 1: eliminating it, but mainly by eliminating one of the types
Speaker 1: of environmental pressure that tends to motivate its use in
Speaker 1: the first place, which is the need to coordinate um
Speaker 1: hunting and other survival subsistence activities within thick forest. Remember
Speaker 1: the motivations, the sort of bioacoustic motivations we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: But despite these pressures, these languages don't have to disappear.
Speaker 1: I was reading about that there are efforts in some
Speaker 1: places to UH, to like set aside special attention and
Speaker 1: care to preserve them. I believe in the Canary Islands
Speaker 1: the whistle speech is like is to some extent being
Speaker 1: taught in schools to to help preserve it. And obviously
Speaker 1: that could be uh could be instituted in other areas
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, that's that's great. I mean, it's wonderful
Speaker 1: that there are these these efforts to keep it alive
Speaker 1: because of course, once once a language is no longer
Speaker 1: properly spoken. It becomes so much harder to bring it back.
Speaker 1: Not to say that it can't be, but you know,
Speaker 1: but but clearly, like holding onto languages, keeping them alive
Speaker 1: are important even and even when they are not, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the traditional spoken languages, but they are these
Speaker 1: whistling tongues than However, despite all this talk we've been
Speaker 1: using about how whistles can be used just like speech
Speaker 1: to encode mundane information, to just transmit information between people,
Speaker 1: there's another way of understanding whistling. One that goes I
Speaker 1: think way back and you know it's been around, uh
Speaker 1: since ancient times, that whistling is also it has a
Speaker 1: kind of power, and that whistling is different than normal speech,
Speaker 1: and that in many ways it may be kind of
Speaker 1: divine or may have a may bring a magical danger
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah. This, if you've listened to everything we've
Speaker 1: discussed so far, you might you might be inclined to think, well,
Speaker 1: whistling sometimes we do it, sometimes it's useful, but that's it.
Speaker 1: We never have any additional values added to it. It's
Speaker 1: never infernal or celestial, it's never vulgar or or or
Speaker 1: anything of that nature. But of course this is this
Speaker 1: is far from from the truth. Uh, there's this deep
Speaker 1: well across pretty much every culture here we can look
Speaker 1: to where whistling has some sort of added meaning. It
Speaker 1: takes on various supernatural tones, and some of these will
Speaker 1: will get into more in the next episode. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to dive in sort of almost really just go
Speaker 1: right to the deep end and dive into this subject
Speaker 1: of transcendental whistling, particularly Chinese transcendental is whistling. But this
Speaker 1: is a topic that also has connections to some other areas.
Speaker 1: So uh, this should this should be a fun journey
Speaker 1: will take and then again come back in later and
Speaker 1: discuss uh some more examples of whistling and Chinese culture
Speaker 1: um from a broader standpoint, as well as a great
Speaker 1: number of whistling related superstitions that involve everything from you know,
Speaker 1: ghosts and monsters to more sort of societal pressures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this brings us to the topic of chin chow, which
Speaker 1: I believe translates to something like lengthy always or forever whistling.
Speaker 1: It's an ancient Daoist practice that involves the use of long, drowned,
Speaker 1: drawn out whistling as a means of cultivating and balancing
Speaker 1: one's vital force or chi And I think that just that,
Speaker 1: that that one nugget of information there, Like, I feel
Speaker 1: like that kind of balance as well with sort of
Speaker 1: a broader experience with whistling. There is something about whistling
Speaker 1: that certainly takes you out of um, out of your thoughts,
Speaker 1: and kind of puts you in the now, even if
Speaker 1: you're just if you were to say, set there and
Speaker 1: focus on whistling a single tone and sort of concentrate
Speaker 1: on it without even bursting into song and so forth, yes,
Speaker 1: I would agree with that. And I guess one of
Speaker 1: the first things that comes to my mind is that
Speaker 1: whistling seems very similar to breath. And of course many
Speaker 1: sort of traditional meditation practices involved manipulation of breath in
Speaker 1: one way or another. That seems to have some kind
Speaker 1: of um power of focusing in the mind in a
Speaker 1: certain way, or unfocusing the mind if you want that.
Speaker 1: The control of breath is like that. And I guess
Speaker 1: in a way, though um speech is also control of breath,
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure why it's that different, but it
Speaker 1: it seems a different kind of control of breath that's
Speaker 1: more akin to the slow, steady breathing exercises that you
Speaker 1: would be more likely to find in a meditative practice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this whole sort of suite of ideas that sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as as like breath magic. Uh and and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you could you could throw whistling in there.
Speaker 1: But also some of the various sounds that are made
Speaker 1: in meditative breathing practices, such as home uh, such as
Speaker 1: there are also various meditation practices where the exhale takes
Speaker 1: on more of the form of a of a of
Speaker 1: an animal noise like a roaring, etcetera. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: in this case, yeah, we definitely are talking about some
Speaker 1: form of of breath magic and that the chang shao.
Speaker 1: It frequently pops up in Chinese literature, with one classic
Speaker 1: example being Rhapsody on Whistling by Ching Gong Psi, who
Speaker 1: lived to thirty one through two seventy three. It's too
Speaker 1: long of a work to read here in full, but
Speaker 1: but key passages about whistling as a practice of the
Speaker 1: uh secluded gentleman are as follows. I'm going to skip
Speaker 1: over many lines here, so this is not a full
Speaker 1: experience of the translated text. Distancing himself from the exquisite
Speaker 1: in the common, he abandons his personal concer earns. Then,
Speaker 1: filled with noble emotion, he gives a long drawn whistle.
Speaker 1: He sends forth marvelous tones from his red lips and
Speaker 1: stimulates mournful sounds from his gleaming teeth. The sound rises
Speaker 1: and falls, rolling in his throat. The breath rushes out
Speaker 1: and is repressed, then flies up like sparks. The whistle
Speaker 1: floats like a wandering cloud in the grand imperiod. H
Speaker 1: And I'm told, okay, this is the transcendental void, and
Speaker 1: gathers a great wind for a myriad miles. When the
Speaker 1: song is finished and the echoes die out, it leaves
Speaker 1: behind a pleasure that lingers on in the mind. Indeed,
Speaker 1: whistling is the most perfect natural music, which cannot be
Speaker 1: imitated by strings or woodwinds. For every category, he has
Speaker 1: a song to each thing he perceives. He tunes a melody.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great. That that gives me chills, dude, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So this this is the copy of the text I
Speaker 1: was looking at is in the Colombia Anthology of Traditional
Speaker 1: Chinese Literature, and sinologist Victor H. Mayor provides some additional
Speaker 1: details on what is being described here. So he describes
Speaker 1: the Chinese transcendental whistling as being quote, a kind of
Speaker 1: nonverbal language with affinities to the spiritual aspect of meditation.
Speaker 1: So it's a tool of the individual for self cultivation
Speaker 1: in search of enlightenment, and is mentioned in appendices to
Speaker 1: the Classic of Changes or the ea Ching. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we actually, I think we did an episode on the
Speaker 1: eaching a long time ago. We did like three or
Speaker 1: four years ago, now maybe, so, yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was pretty pandemic. So the mind controls the breath, and
Speaker 1: with his breath he whistles, and with his whistle, well,
Speaker 1: here here's another quote from mayor quote from any given
Speaker 1: point of view, each object or situation fits into a category.
Speaker 1: For we, there is a corresponding hexagram. Each hexagram consists
Speaker 1: of yin and yang lines, which may be interpreted as
Speaker 1: patterns of sound. These are the songs. So whenever the
Speaker 1: whistler perceives something, he immediately transposes it into a melody.
Speaker 1: With his control of the vital breath, he can manipulate
Speaker 1: these sounds and thereby control any phenomena. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember the the eaching, of course contains the hexagrams,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to remember the significance of the hexagrams
Speaker 1: beyond the divination purpose of the eaching. Um do do
Speaker 1: you recall more than I do? Here? Well? I think
Speaker 1: the main thing to keep in mind is that these
Speaker 1: different heck, these hexagrams come together and they mean things,
Speaker 1: and then they mean things in particular sequences. And so
Speaker 1: I think for our purposes here we might think of
Speaker 1: these as being sort of un encoding of reality. And
Speaker 1: then the whistle here, the the Chinese transcendental whistling, can
Speaker 1: be used as a way first of sort of meeting
Speaker 1: the coded reality, but then also controlling the encoded reality.
Speaker 1: And it is said that the whistle alone can can
Speaker 1: quote turn the pure Yang hexagram inside out to form
Speaker 1: the pure Yen hexagram. So we're getting into like the
Speaker 1: vital energies of the universe here. And the idea here
Speaker 1: is that if if someone is is an expert in this,
Speaker 1: if they know what they're doing, then not only are
Speaker 1: they sort of confronting reality with the whistle, but then
Speaker 1: they are they're able to change things and flip things,
Speaker 1: alter the universal energy involved in a given situation. Okay,
Speaker 1: I see. So it's a kind of a meaning magic
Speaker 1: in the same way that language itself sometimes is used to,
Speaker 1: you know, the traditions that ascribe sort of magical power
Speaker 1: to certain words or um or or symbols signifying words.
Speaker 1: But it's just not the same as the language. It's
Speaker 1: like an alternate version of meaning magic. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: I and I have to to stress you idea this
Speaker 1: is we're talking about those kind of lofty dallast practice here.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, we're we're only sort of loosely
Speaker 1: describing it. But but I believe this is the gist
Speaker 1: of it. Uh. And this is the way of looking
Speaker 1: at it that is useful to move forward, and again
Speaker 1: we'll come back to perhaps in the next episode, we'll
Speaker 1: get back into some other uh traditional Chinese ideas concerning
Speaker 1: whistling in general, and some of these ideas will sort
Speaker 1: of flow back into this topic of transcendental whistling. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I found really interesting about this,
Speaker 1: this idea of using sound, using the whistle and then
Speaker 1: sort of changing something about reality, is that uh. And
Speaker 1: ultimately the idea of breath, the breath becoming sound, and
Speaker 1: sound not only describing but transforming something. Um, I this
Speaker 1: stirred something in my memory. So and uh and I
Speaker 1: think another part was the eaching connection because I was
Speaker 1: reminded of something that Terence McKenna discussed in his of
Speaker 1: True Hallucinations, a concept that his brother Dennis I think
Speaker 1: largely contemplated called the psycho audible warp phenomenon. And this
Speaker 1: is gonna also get you know, we're going from from
Speaker 1: from from Dallas to uh uh transcendental practices here into
Speaker 1: the work of Terence McKenna and his brother Dennis. So um,
Speaker 1: you know this is another sort of lofty idea, but
Speaker 1: it has to do as I've read. It has to
Speaker 1: do with the trip tomine metabolism and the electro spin
Speaker 1: resonance of the psilocybin molecule. And I don't pretend to
Speaker 1: understand it entirely, but it does seem to boil down
Speaker 1: to a sort of voice sound based manipulation of reality
Speaker 1: while one is within an altered state of mind. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I, when you're talking about mckennay, you never know
Speaker 1: exactly It's it's hard to tell exactly how magical he's
Speaker 1: claiming something. Are they talking about literally actually changing external
Speaker 1: physical reality by the use of of UH sounds and
Speaker 1: and and hallucinations in the mind. Um, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to say, right, I mean, it's when with a lot
Speaker 1: of this kind of stuff one gets the idea of
Speaker 1: it's like the chasing of some sort of of an
Speaker 1: idea that it's all about, sort of, you know, the
Speaker 1: ideas coming together things that they've read and and taking
Speaker 1: on new forms within the psychedelic experience. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to say, But I was curious on
Speaker 1: reading somebody else's take on all this, so I found
Speaker 1: a paper titled The Weird Naturalism of the Brothers McKenna
Speaker 1: by Eric Davis for the International Journal for the Study
Speaker 1: of New Religions, published in two thousand and sixteen. And
Speaker 1: this is an expert This is one of the things
Speaker 1: that Davis says here. Davis writes, quote, Dennis believed that
Speaker 1: a psycho fluid could be generated through the vocal effect.
Speaker 1: He had discovered a psycho audible warp phenomenon that generated
Speaker 1: a specific kind of energy field that can rupture three
Speaker 1: dimensional space. Of course, had this wild theory. The buzz
Speaker 1: that Dennis hurt in his head was caused by the
Speaker 1: electron spin resonance or es R of the metabolizing psilocybin
Speaker 1: alkaloids inserting themselves into the base pairs of his neuronal DNA.
Speaker 1: This sound was picked up and amplified through the antenna
Speaker 1: created through this Similarly, resonating harmine alkaloids let loose from
Speaker 1: the ayahuasca vine that they nippled. By imitating this sound
Speaker 1: with his voice, it's harmonic frequencies would be canceled out,
Speaker 1: calling the harmine psilocybine DNA complex to drop into a stable,
Speaker 1: superconducting hyperdimensional state with apocalyptic results. Okay, okay, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be unkind, but this reads to me as
Speaker 1: another one of these cases of somebody who's kind of
Speaker 1: a psychonaut having a a profound, very person only meaningful,
Speaker 1: ineffable experience on a psychedelic and then trying desperately to
Speaker 1: sort of literally externalize that experience and say, no, it
Speaker 1: has some kind of literal, causative physical reality to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're there. I think that's that's fair. And then
Speaker 1: they're also of course again, you go into a psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience bringing all of these other pre existing ideas and
Speaker 1: certainly they seem to be tapping into some alchemical concepts
Speaker 1: as well. Davis says that it's difficult to really figure
Speaker 1: out what Dennis is getting at here, but there are
Speaker 1: a lot of comparisons to the alchemical concept of the
Speaker 1: Philosopher's Stone and the creation of this belief that the
Speaker 1: quote from Dennis's quote, the ultimate technological artifact that would
Speaker 1: hold a great deal of power over reality. That's getting
Speaker 1: into the apocalyptic results. Uh so, uh so, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's more than a little alchemy tied up
Speaker 1: into this concept. Now, the idea of the psychedelic ex
Speaker 1: arians and all of this is interesting and and elsewhere
Speaker 1: mckinna does connect all of this to whistling in a
Speaker 1: more well, I guess, grounded manner. So this is a
Speaker 1: quote I believe this is from one of mckinna's many talks.
Speaker 1: He says, quote, Ayahuasca is different by sound, by song,
Speaker 1: by whistling, and its ability to transform sound, including vocal sound,
Speaker 1: into the visual spectrum indicates that some kind of information
Speaker 1: processing membrane or boundary is being overcome by the pharmacology
Speaker 1: of this stuff and things normally experienced as acoustically experienced
Speaker 1: become visibly beheld, and it's quite spectacular unquote. And this
Speaker 1: would definitely be I think an example of tarrance of
Speaker 1: Terence speaking about something uh with a little more of
Speaker 1: the science hat on as opposed to the psychonod hat right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there he's describing the phenomenology of
Speaker 1: drug induced synesthesia, the idea that when under the influence
Speaker 1: of some psychedelics, you can the perception of one normal
Speaker 1: uh piece of sense information can can bleed over into another. So,
Speaker 1: for example, people on certain psychedelics often report being able
Speaker 1: to like hear colors or see sounds and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now now getting into what Terrence is talking about here
Speaker 1: concerning ayahuasca. Um Aahuasca, for anyone unfamiliar, is a psychoactive
Speaker 1: brew used for ceremonial purposes among various indigenous peoples of
Speaker 1: the Amazon Basin. Taking it can result in an altered
Speaker 1: state of consciousness, complete with hallucinations. And for a little
Speaker 1: more about whistling and all of this, I turned to
Speaker 1: a paper. This is a paper by Fred Katz and
Speaker 1: Maryline dobb Ken at De Rios published in the Journal
Speaker 1: of American Folklore. Again, it's the ninety one and it's
Speaker 1: titled Hallucinogenic Music, An Analysis of the role of Whistling
Speaker 1: in Peruvian ayahuasca healing sessions and in at the author's
Speaker 1: point out that drug induced states and music tend to
Speaker 1: go hand in hand, and traditions around the world that
Speaker 1: involves psychoactive substances. They're talking about religious traditions here, But
Speaker 1: I think this this also carries on into modern psychedelic
Speaker 1: culture as well. Only ancient societies they didn't have Steve
Speaker 1: Roach albums to listen to. They couldn't just play something
Speaker 1: on their iPhone. They had their traditional musical instruments, they
Speaker 1: had their voices, they had their songs, and they had
Speaker 1: their whistles. Yeah, I think it is totally not an
Speaker 1: accident that psychedelic drugs are widely associated with music in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. I don't think that's a coincidence because
Speaker 1: I don't know, because The Grateful Dead was a band
Speaker 1: instead of visual artists or filmmakers or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there is sort of an inherent connection
Speaker 1: between psychedelics and music, that the altered state of consciousness
Speaker 1: for some reason is very well complimented by music. We
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. The patterns created by music
Speaker 1: tend to be very pleasing to people in in altered
Speaker 1: states of consciousness and uh, and it's sort of a
Speaker 1: feedback loop to right that there's there's this idea that
Speaker 1: people on psychedelics often enjoy listening to music but also
Speaker 1: want to create music. Yeah, I mean, the psychedelic experience
Speaker 1: can change the way the music is heard, the way
Speaker 1: it's interpreted, and so forth. And they get into this
Speaker 1: a little bit in the paper. They describe the use
Speaker 1: of whistling incantations with these ayahuasca ceremonies, which are thought
Speaker 1: to allow one to evoke the spirit of the vine
Speaker 1: for healing purposes. And they point out that on one hand,
Speaker 1: the uses of sacred music and a sit in these
Speaker 1: sorts of situations, this is not all that different from
Speaker 1: the use of say Gregorian chant and med evil Christianity.
Speaker 1: You know, we we also do we can't we can't
Speaker 1: go into a scenario like this and forget that music
Speaker 1: on its own is already this powerful thing that that
Speaker 1: alters thought, um, you know, and can can make minds
Speaker 1: work in unison with each other. But we do have
Speaker 1: the added psychedelic factor here to take into account, um
Speaker 1: and uh and and this is where where it gets
Speaker 1: perhaps a little more interesting with the ayahuasca scenario. They
Speaker 1: write quote such phenomena as the slowing down or changing
Speaker 1: of time. Perception must be related to how music is
Speaker 1: perceived by the individual under the effects of powerful alkaloids
Speaker 1: harmone and harmline present in the ayahuasca potion. The number
Speaker 1: of metronomic markings listed earlier the paper includes some sheet
Speaker 1: music notations of the whistling may not indeed be perceived
Speaker 1: as they would in an ordinary state. So that's worth
Speaker 1: thinking about the idea of of music that is is
Speaker 1: not only not not only is it interesting when it
Speaker 1: is heard during this particular altered state of consciousness, but
Speaker 1: it is created to be heard in this altered state
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Yeah, well, I would say that that there
Speaker 1: are other parallels to modern popular music there. Um, what
Speaker 1: would you say about genres of music that are most
Speaker 1: often associated with the psychedelic experiences. I would say they
Speaker 1: tend to be more sort of meandering and repetitive. And
Speaker 1: I think that's because you know, like jam bands and
Speaker 1: stuff for or stoner metal or any of those things,
Speaker 1: that they tend to create these um patterns that repeat
Speaker 1: a lot and are are less tight and focused than
Speaker 1: say a normal two and a half minute pop song. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that has that clearly has something to do again
Speaker 1: with the phenomenology of the psychedelic experience, that there's something
Speaker 1: about like sort of getting into a state of mind
Speaker 1: and lingering there and maybe changes in the perception of
Speaker 1: time and patterns and stuff. Yeah, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: good point about the repetition because you think you can
Speaker 1: think of various, right or different genres of popular music
Speaker 1: today that have strong connections to like psychedelic drug culture things.
Speaker 1: Is different to say citrants and say doom metal. You know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't mistake one for the other. But when you
Speaker 1: get into like long h uses of repetition, there are
Speaker 1: similarities there. But so, okay, that's music specifically and why
Speaker 1: certain kinds of music might traditionally be a so seated
Speaker 1: with these ceremonies that involves psychedelics. But like, what what
Speaker 1: about the specific characteristics of whistling would come in right,
Speaker 1: So to bring us back to this ayahuasca scenario, you
Speaker 1: have someone taking the ayahuasca beginning to have this experience
Speaker 1: and they're being guided by a shaman the shaman is
Speaker 1: using whistling as part of their guidance. So the authors
Speaker 1: point out in the seventy one paper, the music seems
Speaker 1: to have an effect on the visuals that the individual
Speaker 1: under the influence of ayahuasca reports, and that the shaman
Speaker 1: leading the ceremony and guiding the individual through the experience
Speaker 1: will alter their use of melodies as needed, such as
Speaker 1: one example being in response to the patient UH, the
Speaker 1: individual taking that has taken the drug, experiencing nausea or
Speaker 1: or vomiting. Different melodies are said to evoke different sorts
Speaker 1: of visions, and the music the whistling is said to
Speaker 1: help push the individual past the naza nasea, past the vomiting,
Speaker 1: past and initial anxiety that is a part of the UH,
Speaker 1: the the experience, and into the desired alternate state that
Speaker 1: is often said to sort of exist beyond the nausea,
Speaker 1: beyond the vomiting, beyond the initial like physical reaction to
Speaker 1: the substances. I wonder if the specific potency of whistling
Speaker 1: there and not just any type of singing or drumming
Speaker 1: or anything like that. UH. It might have something to
Speaker 1: do with the specific bioacoustic properties of whistling that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, like the ability of whistling to cut
Speaker 1: through other ambient sounds and to use a music engineer's term,
Speaker 1: to cut through the mix uh in a way that
Speaker 1: many other types of of naturally produced music wouldn't, say,
Speaker 1: you know, singing or drumming or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you can imagine this scenario where the shaman is is
Speaker 1: having to cut through probably quite a bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously this is not something that this experience is likely
Speaker 1: not taking place in an urban environment. But there there
Speaker 1: may be the sound sounds of of nature outside of
Speaker 1: the enclosure that one is having this experience in. There
Speaker 1: may be other you know, sounds within the uh, the enclosure,
Speaker 1: and of course there is the physical experience that's going
Speaker 1: on that coul that would be quite distracting. And here
Speaker 1: is the shaman with this whistle, this music that is
Speaker 1: cutting through all that, or to cut through hallucinated sounds.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, I thought there's one more quote from
Speaker 1: the paper here I thought was key quote. It is
Speaker 1: possible that the patients augmented suggestibility encounters in the presence
Speaker 1: of the healer a creative source and origin of music
Speaker 1: which alleviates anxiety, tranquilizes and causes a turning inward by
Speaker 1: the musical evocation of particular visions. And so that turning
Speaker 1: inward reminds me once more of those descriptions of Chinese
Speaker 1: transcendental whistling and the inward journey there so, and in
Speaker 1: a way, I kind of feel like it comes comes
Speaker 1: full circle there um. So you know. So, so this
Speaker 1: is all I think it accounts for a handful of
Speaker 1: of probably um extreme examples of whistling that is not
Speaker 1: mundane whistling that takes on this heightened meaning. Be be
Speaker 1: that heightened meaning reliant upon some sort of uh, psychoactive property,
Speaker 1: or merely just some sort of an intense thought process
Speaker 1: and meditation ritual. Yeah. So I was just looking back
Speaker 1: at those lines you quoted from the Rhapsody on whistling,
Speaker 1: the translation of it um, and so I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: that with reference to the psychedelic experience, which you know,
Speaker 1: in many cases, I think it is thought to be
Speaker 1: largely associative. That a big characteristic of the religious psychedelic experiences,
Speaker 1: maybe um, forming associations between things in the mind where
Speaker 1: the cause of that association is not obvious or is
Speaker 1: not literal. And to that point, I think of the
Speaker 1: line in the Rhapsody that says, for every category he
Speaker 1: has a song to everything he perceives. He tunes a
Speaker 1: melody the idea that there are certain whistles or or
Speaker 1: or sequences of whistles, maybe like tunes connected to ideas,
Speaker 1: even though there there's no way that that tune that
Speaker 1: you just whistled actually means a leopard, or actually means
Speaker 1: a house, or means a tree, But for some reason
Speaker 1: in your mind, suddenly it does. And in fact, the
Speaker 1: same thing is true of language. That's you know, one
Speaker 1: of the weird fundamental features of language, when you stop
Speaker 1: to think about it, is that the word tree has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the tree, that the association that
Speaker 1: you make between them is is purely a learned association.
Speaker 1: That it's not to be found anywhere in nature. The
Speaker 1: same would be true of the melody. Yet for some
Speaker 1: reason in your mind you kind of create a language
Speaker 1: that suddenly that melody means the concept. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: think on one hand these examples are are the extreme,
Speaker 1: but they also do get to some of the core
Speaker 1: realities of whistling that we've been discussing all along. Uh so, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this has been a fascinating journey thus far,
Speaker 1: and we're not done yet. We have so much more
Speaker 1: to discuss. In the next episode, we're going to get
Speaker 1: into whistling and antiquity, uh basic questions like did the
Speaker 1: ancient Romans whistle? Well, it's it's a more complicated question
Speaker 1: than you might think, as well as what happens when
Speaker 1: God whistle? Oh God, the whistling, the whistling and the
Speaker 1: divine Yes, that's that also, that was the whole question
Speaker 1: that took me off guard. But that'll be fun to
Speaker 1: discuss as well. Also, I think we want to talk
Speaker 1: something about the psychology of whistling that might further inform
Speaker 1: some of the discussions we've had today. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well we were We hope that you're enjoying this, uh,
Speaker 1: this journey as much as we are. And of course
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everybody, because whistling is something
Speaker 1: that that all or or most of you are are
Speaker 1: somewhat familiar with, or you're gonna have particular connections to
Speaker 1: it in general or specific connections even to some of
Speaker 1: the traditions that we've discussed here. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you, so definitely right in about your whistle and
Speaker 1: the whistling of others. In the meantime, new episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the core episodes published on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesday's we do a short form
Speaker 1: artifact or monster fact. On Monday's we do listener mail.
Speaker 1: On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns and just
Speaker 1: talk about a strange film. Huge thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows by Bliss has a time back by a
Speaker 1: pro