Globular Flute employed in Han Chinese Confucian rituals. The xun (pronounced ‘hsün’) is an egg-shaped flute of baked clay, with a blow-hole at its apex and usually between three and eight finger-holes distributed in various patterns. Sizes vary between about 8 and 13 cm in height. Because of its globular wind chamber, the xun has a range of only about one octave, without usable overtones.
The ancient legacy of this ritual instrument in China is equalled only by the qing stone chime. Numerous small clay flutes, irregularly ball-shaped, egg-shaped and fish-shaped, have been found in Neolithic sites in and around Shanxi province, dating to c4000 bce and later. These ancient proto-xun flutes are between about 5 and 8 cm in height, each with one or two finger-holes. Instruments now identified as xun, found in late Shang sites (c1200 bce) of Henan province, are roughly the same size, though in shape of a large egg (standard thereafter), and generally with five finger-holes (three at the front, two at the rear). One important decorative characteristic found on some Shang instruments is the taotie design (face of a mythical animal, see illustration) on the outer surface.
The xun is mentioned frequently in Zhou literature. A note in the Erya (c3rd century bce) states that ‘a large xun is like a goose egg, with a flattened bottom and six holes; a small one is like a chicken egg’. The reference to ‘six holes’ almost certainly means five finger-holes (standard in archaeological finds) plus one blow-hole. The Han dynasty text Fengsu Tongyi (c175 ce) and other sources give specific measurements for the flutes of this period. Later sources, such as Yueshu (c1100), suggest that by the 12th century there were several varieties of xun, most slightly larger, with between six and eight finger-holes (for these and more recent developments, see Chuang, 1972).
The role of xun within the ritual ensemble of the imperial court is preserved today in the Confucian ritual in Taipei. Its significance within Confucian ideology is noted in the Shijing (‘Classic of Poetry’, c7th century bce): ‘the elder brother plays xun, the younger brother plays chi [transverse flute]’, with an explanation in the commentary that ‘our minds, as brothers, must be in harmony’, a metaphoric reminder of the need for social accordance within the family. Apart from its use in Confucian ritual, the xun has enjoyed a minor renaissance in China since the 1980s within the context of flute recitals.
Related historically is the chi (see China, §III; Di) and, outside China, the Korean hun, the Vietnamese huân and the Japanese tsuchibue.
Chuang Pen-li: ‘A Historical and Comparative Study of Hsün, the Chinese Ocarina’, Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, xxxiii (1972), 177–253 [with Eng. summary]
Cao Zheng: ‘Xun he xunde zhizuo gongyi’ [The xun and the art of its manufacture], Yueqi, (1982), no.4, pp.5–7; no.5, pp.4–6
Tong Kin-woon: Shang Musical Instruments (diss., Wesleyan U., 1983); repr. in AsM, xv/1 (1983), 152–66
Liu Dongsheng and others, eds.: Zhongguo yueqi tuzhi [Pictorial record of Chinese musical instruments] (Beijing, 1987), 25–34
Liu Dongsheng and Yuan Quanyou, eds.: Zhongguo yinyue shi tujian [Pictorial guide to the history of Chinese music] (Beijing, 1988), 10–12
Liu Dongsheng, ed.: Zhongguo yueqi tujian [Pictorial guide to Chinese instruments] (Ji’nan, 1992), 112–13
Li Chunyi: Zhongguo shanggu chutu yueqi zonglun [Survey of ancient excavated musical instruments from China] (Beijing, 1996), 386–407
ALAN R. THRASHER