Laramie, Wyoming
Great Plains / Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation

Eastern Cedar, pigment, leather
2000s
Length:  21.5 in
Aerophone – Wind Instrument Proper – Edge-blown Flutes

Signed: Michael Frerichs

This Arapaho ‘Little Fast Elk’ flute is signed by its maker, Michael Frerichs of the Northern Arapahoe Tribe from Laramie, Wyoming.

The Arapaho people historically lived on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.  By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed two tribes, namely the Northern Arapaho and Southern Arapaho. Since 1878, the Northern Arapaho have lived with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and are federally recognized as the Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation.

This Arapaho flute has two air chambers: The end that is closest to the player’s mouth with a slanted upward (ramp-type) channel, and the bottom foot end or sound chamber, also called the pipe body. Inside the flute is a plug or stopper that separates these two chambers.  The Native American flute is not strictly considered an end-blown flute.  Air is blown into the mouth hole of the flute and travels to the exit hole of the first chamber, on top, where there is an affixed external/mobile block.  This affixed block serves as a roof or cover at the ‘wind way’ between both chambers and directs the blown air into the flue of the second chamber across a splitting edge (fipple edge).  This sound chamber with six  fingerholes, allows the player to change the frequency (pitch) of the vibrating air by covering the holes with their fingers.

Reference:  https://www.flutetree.com/nature/EarliestPlainsFlutes.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arapaho