page_title: Taonga pūoro
section_title: Nguru
hierarchical_section_title: Taonga pūoro / Instruments / Wind instruments / Flutes / Nguru
caption_attribution_description: Nguru (flute). Wood, paua shell (Abalone haliotis). New Zealand.
context_page_description: Taonga pūoro are the traditional musical instruments of the Māori people of New Zealand.
  The instruments previously fulfilled many functions within Māori society including a call to arms, dawning of the new day, communications with the gods and the planting of crops. They are significant in sacred ritual and also fulfill a story-telling role. Many of the sounds of the instruments and tunes are imitations of the sounds of nature, including the wind, the seas and the natural world of birds and insects.
  Knowledge of taonga pūoro has been revived over the past thirty years by Hirini Melbourne, Richard Nunns and Brian Flintoff.
context_section_description: The nguru is a small vessel flute in the Helmholtz oscillator class, like an ocarina or xun. It is made of wood, soapstone or bone and shaped like a whale's tooth. Sometimes it is made from a whale's tooth. It is from 5 to 15 cm (2 to 6 in) in length, wide at the blowing end and tapering to the lower where it is slightly turned up. It has two or three fingerholes and an extra hole bored on the underside, near the curved end, through which a cord could be passed so that it could hang round the owner's neck. It is played in the same way as a kōauau and produces a similar pure flute-like sound. The nguru is sometimes classified as a nose flute perhaps because the word nguru means to sigh, moan, or snore. This is unlikely because the large end is too wide for a nostril and, if the curved end were placed in that same position, the flute would lie at an impossible angle for the player to reach the fingerholes.
  Demonstration of melody on Nguru, following, the Pūrerehua
caption: Nguru made from wood with pāua shell inserts
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