Trading Path Flute

The year 2007 marks the 400th anniversary of the first permanent European settlement in North America in what is now Jamestown, Virginia. To recognize the initial contact between the Native and European cultures and the importance of trade in the maintenance of peaceful relations, the ‘Trading Path’ flute has been created.

Through the blending of hardwoods and copper metal, this flute is a study in contrast of the two worlds forced together four centuries ago. Both civilizations, their diversity and commonality, are captured in this flute. It is this unique combination of hard and soft, warm and cold, light and heavy, that creates a flute both stunning in appearance and stellar in sound, a mix as different as America was, and is today.

Copper was selected for this flute because of the critical role it played in the survival of Jamestown. This metal was the preeminent prestige commodity used to distinguish rank within Powhatan Indian society. Not found locally, the scarce metal was acquired from the Monacans, a rival tribe from the piedmont region of Virginia. Captain John Smith quickly learned the economic power of copper in negotiating with the Native peoples. The trading of copper for food is what staved off the colonists’ early annihilation and allowed for peaceful coexistence during the first years of the settlement.