Antara (musical instrument)

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The antara is a panpipe of only one tier of pipes of cane of different lengths, which expresses each one a height.

It is a musical instrument composed by a series of pipes (be already of ceramics or canes) arranged in vertical, gradual form (that is to say in stairs) and in tiers or lines (1 ó 2). At present they are made of a cane that grows in the eyebrow of forest known like chuki or chajlla (Arundo donax); the pipes held by one or two strips of cane (ties) form only one trapezoidal plane (like raft). The antaras are of different sizes and they produce diverse sounds.

Generally they present two lines of pipes, the principal this line formed by pipes opened in an end and closed in other for the natural knot of the cane. The pipes of the secondary tier, open or closed in his ends they be distant, they enrich the sounds produced by the principal pipes.

It is also known as a Siku, Panflute, or Panpipe. Siku is a term used so much in Quechuan as in Aymara used by the peoples of the Plateau of the Collao (P.e. Qcollas and Huancanés). Panpipe is a generic name in Spanish language with which it is named at present to the altiplánicas flutes (Jimenez Borja 1950-51; Valency Chacon 1981 and 1989). The name pan flute is associated with a god of the Greek mythology. The god Pan, his creator, who was an anthropomorphic being represented by human body, feet caprinos, two horns, beard and hirsute hair (Bolaños 1988: 17; Valency Chacon 1989: 31).