Music and Ivory: Artifacts of a Destructive Past
Music and Ivory: Artifacts of a Destructive Past
What do you think about when you hear the word ivory? Maybe your first thought is of discomfort, with ivory’s violent history of elephant poaching and the near extinction of all species of elephant or maybe you also think about a beautiful piece of art in a museum. Most likely, your mind does not jump directly to “music.” However, ivory was used in the production of musical instruments from various musical practices around the world. As we know, music is an important part of human society and culture. Historically and in our modern age, music is an integral part of our daily lives- from storytelling to religious practices and rituals to advertising and pop culture. Much like all human practices, music is tied to the production and use of tools- in this case, instruments- made from our earth’s materials such as wood, stone, bone, and especially ivory. While it is often unsavory to think about how humans have harmed the environment and it is easier to not examine harmful practices from the past such as the rampant use of ivory, as musicians and/or scholars in the 21st century, it is important to increase our awareness of historical musical practices related to globalization, colonialism, and capitalism which have irrecoverably changed our environment. To borrow from Jose Martinez-Reyes’s concept of “enviromateriality,” we must think in a framework of intersectional understanding to understand complex relationships, power dynamics, and issues of materiality involved in producing instruments, those who consume those instruments and their music. We must examine how and why materials such as ivory have been such an important part of musical history and further learn from the “musical artifacts” we have access to at Oberlin Conservatory.
To understand why ivory has been so widely used, we must first understand what it is and where it comes from. Ivory is the material that makes up the tusks of walruses, and some species of whale, but has historically been harvested mostly from elephants. There are two species of elephant, the African elephant, which is the largest land mammal, and the Asian elephant which is the second largest land mammal. Males of both species and females of the African species have tusks or upper incisors that grow throughout the lifetime of the elephant. Both African and Asian elephant populations, which used to be estimated to number in the multi-millions, have been devastated by poaching and demand for ivory.
Ivory is different compositionally from the material that makes up teeth, bones, horns or antlers. Ivory is made of dentine which includes both organic and inorganic compounds which make it a flexible substance in that it can grow which still being rigid and strong. Its physical qualities make ivory a great material to use for many purposes, but the rampant use of ivory is directly related to colonial values and global capitalism and masculinity. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, wealthy men from the United States and Europe began to vacation in Africa to go on safari and hunt the wildlife, including elephants. The ivory tusks of elephants killed on these trips began to be treated as trophies of wealth and masculine power. Ivory became synonymous with wealth and power so the demand for products made of or decorated with ivory began to grow. By 1913 the United States alone was using 2.5 tonnes of ivory annually to produce combs, brush handles, pool balls, jewelry and instrument parts such as piano key covers. Because the United States and Europe were great global superpowers who made ivory a desirable sign of wealth and status, the global demand for ivory grew exponentially and the amount of ivory used grew well beyond the amounts previously used by various cultural and ethnic groups for religious and artistic purposes.
The use of ivory to show wealth and status can clearly be seen in the history of musical instrument production. Sonically, the hardness of material helps to amplify the sound produced by the instrument. Up until the 1980s, ivory was used to make piano key covers and is still used to make bows for musical instruments such as the violin and cello. Ivory has also been used to make high quality, expensive instruments which through the amount of ivory used to make these instruments, illustrated the wealth and high status of those who owned and played the ivory instruments. Ivory has been used in high-end instruments, examples of which can be seen within the collection of instruments at Oberlin Conservatory. In Western Art Music traditions instruments such as Steinway pianos and Stradivarius violins have ivory inlay as well as instruments from various other musical traditions such as the ivory rebab from Javanese Gamelan collection.
The Javanese rebab is a spike-lute chordophone that has two strings and is played using a bow. Each rebab is made of many removable parts. The resonating head of the instrument is called the menthak. The menthak is covered at the with a hyde or skin, much like a drum head. The back of the menthak is covered in a cloth called the dodot. Within the menthak is a large metal spike that extends through the body of the instrument and attaches to the neck or watangan. Attached to the watangan is a pegbox or irah-irahan where two tuning pegs or mangol are attached. Though many rebabs are primarily made of wood, many from the 19th century, such as one in Oberlin’s collection, is made primarily out of ivory. This begs the question of why? Why were some rebabs made out of wood while others were made out of ivory?
Very little information is known about the history of the ivory rebab at Oberlin Conservatory. While it has been at Oberlin for many years, it was not identified to be ivory (as opposed to bone) until relatively recently. Similar rebabs at the British Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, we can infer that the rebab at Oberlin is most likely from the 18th or 19th century which may indicate that the use of ivory for rebabs came more into fashion and practice as the use of ivory for luxury items for wealthy Westerners was becoming prominent. However, ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst suggests in his book, Music in Java: Its history, Its Theory and Its Technique, that the use of ivory on some rebabs was for a technical and sonic difference rather than an aesthetic one. Kunst states that the rebabs with ivory necks were used for gamelan music in the pelog scale whereas rebabs used to play music in the slendro scale are made of ivory and buffalo horn. He goes on to say that some rebabs are made of wood but they are of a lesser sonic quality than those made out of horn and ivory. While rebabs at the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the rebab at Oberlin differ from Kunst’s description due to being made entirely of ivory, the information that Kunst provides suggests that the use of ivory in rebab production may have been a common practice well before global trends in frequent and massive ivory usage.
Though it poses many more questions than it answers, the ivory rebab at Oberlin is an insight to a past musical tradition of rebab making. It is an artifact of the past and despite the ugly, violent, and environmentally devastating history of ivory harvesting, the products that remain which are made of ivory must be preserved to remind us of what was important historically. Though we cannot fix the environmental impact of harvesting ivory, losing the information that the artifact of the ivory instruments can tell us would be wasteful. The ivory rebab at Oberlin falls into this category, but the rebab itself has suffered some damage over time- cracks to ivory in the neck/wantangan as well as in the pegbox/irah-irahan and tuning pegs/mangol. Practices and procedures must be put in place to keep the rebab from being damaged further and maintaining the piece of history that is the instrument itself.
According to the Smithsonian Museum Care and Handling Institute, ivory, which is very reactive to its surroundings, should be handled using cleaned hands or cotton gloves. Ideally, it should be stored 45-55 % relative humidity and approximately 70° F to avoid warping and cracking. The ivory piece should be stored in relatively low levels of light, limited sun exposure to avoid discoloration. Rubber materials should not be used to display or store ivory because rubber can cause yellowing to the dentine of the ivory itself. While ivory does darken or “patina” over time, oils from hands and rubber, liquids and light can lead to deep discoloration and damage.
It is important to think critically about the instruments that we play and have access to. While we must recognize the potentially fraught history of materials used to produce these instruments, it is important to safeguard the instruments that we do have to serve as artifacts for future musicians and scholars to learn from. While practices regard instrument materiality such as ivory harvesting have irrecoverably shaped and harmed our global environment, these issues are often forced to the background so that aesthetic sensibility and beauty can be the focus of artistic and academic discourse. However, our aesthetic choices shape our environment in a real and often harmful way which can no longer be overlooked in 2019. We must care for our artifacts from the past, such as the ivory rebab, try to understand their histories, and with that understanding strive to find more sustainable paths for instrument production in the future.
If you wish to learn more about materiality and see the ivory rebab at Oberlin as well as many other instruments please come see these artifacts displayed in the Selch Classroom of Oberlin Conservatory, Bibbins Hall Room 234, 77 West College St. Oberlin, OH 44074.
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