Bill, I commend you on your manners, and I'll not quarrel with Antonio's history of the names and the language of the instruments of South America.
But as an outside source I'll just say "bullshit". Parallel development of anything is both possible and likely, and particularly of musical instruments as there are only about five forms. I'll not join forces with either the "once out of Africa" or the "multiple migrations out of Africa", or even the parallel evolution from earlier primates in various parts of the world. I don't give a damn, (And I'll drop that there as it is entirely another argument than the instruments, although it is the same principle). An armadillo shell, a turtle shell, a hollowed piece of wood. a carefully constructed and thin walled body of fine woods jointed together. They are all the same, they are sounding chambers to amplify and enhance the sound of strings. It is not necessary to say that any occurance of a similar instrument in a different place is an imitation of something from another place. If we did that we would have to put the lute as an imitation of the early Chinese "lutes". There are natural sounding devices, and mankind in his evolution has found them all (except until very recent times and the Theremin - the only directly electronic instrument - and the directly generated digital sound of the computer synthesizers). But there I must take exception, there is no digital music as music is only in the ear of the listener - and until we make a major evolutionary change our ears (and auditory nerves, and brains) only comprenend analog sounds - it is just the reproduction of sound that has become digital, and that only as the digital speeds have become such that they can record more audible details. There are five instruments: the percussion, the horn, the reed, the zither and the lute. (And don't quarrel with me on details, I could separate them into more). The latter two are of interest on this list. The harp and the zither are the same, and the violin and the lute are the same. Even so they can be separated, the zither parallels the strings to the soundboard while the harp pulls them away. So my categories are actually wrong. So there, you purists. There is nothing really pure. But all instruments come from plucking or bowing a string, blowing into something, or pounding on something. And there was parallel develpment, the bow and arrow was invented and re-invented. The natives of the Amazon don't need bird calling devices to make the songs of the birds, and had Dowland been marooned on a desert island he might have come up with the same damned turtle shell bowl as might any Brazilian. But then again he might have made a bamboo whistle! Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
