Paw ku – Karen Xylophone

The Karen have developed a robust musical heritage that is unparalleled in Southeast Asia due to a number of distinctive musical practices and instruments. One rarity in the Golden Triangle is the Karen bamboo xylophone, paw ku, also known as jikli, a tradition that is rapidly disappearing.

The makeshift Karen xylophone is constructed with a base of two long bundles of cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica) bound with rattan cording, which are set on the ground in a V-shape frame on which a series of eleven or more graduated bamboo tubes are laid side by side.

The paw ku’s bars are fashioned from new bamboo, giving the instrument a bright timbre, made all the more melodic by the cushioning cogon grass base. As the bars age, their tone becomes dull and are no longer deemed worthy of sacred rites.

Measuring from twenty to fifty centimeters in length and four to fifteen centimeters in circumference, each bar is hewn along the length on the underside, with one end blocked by a natural node, and the other open end cut to a point.  The shorter the tube, the higher the pitch. The bars are tuned to two sets of matching octaves in a pentatonic scale within a two-octave range. A musician strikes the xylophone with small wood or bamboo mallets, creating melodies that produce a hollow, woody timbre.

The paw ku is accompanied in a steady rhythm by a pair of bass bamboo beaters—the hefty beater, klo, measures over a meter in length and sounds one octave below the third lowest xylophone bar; and the shorter, klo a deu, matches the fifth lowest bar.

The Karen paw ku xylophone can only be perfomred in the bgha, the meeting center where its namesake Bgha, the village guardian spirit, is honored, and spiritual, cultural, and administrative matters are carried out.

Numerous important annual observances, sacred and secular, are held in the bgha to: recount and remember Karen history; welcome guests; celebrate weddings; mark funeral services; and observe the New Year, among others. These occasions are traditionally launched by an ensemble of musicians of the kwae horn, klo oh tra oh bronze drum, and paw ku xylophone, accompanied by two percussion beaters, klo and klo a deu.

Recording:
Musical rites to call the rain, played on the paw ku xylophone (S’gaw Karen)
Ou Sa, Ban Mae Wa Luang, Tak Province, Thailand, February 2022

Ethnic Group: Pwo Karen

Local Name: Paw ku

Type: Xylophone

Class: Struck Idiophone

Tuning: Pentatonic scale over two octaves

Age: 2022

Materials: Bamboo, cogon grass, wood

Dimensions:
Eleven bamboo bars range:
53 x 4 dia. cm / 23 x 4 dia. cm /
21” x 1.5” dia. / 9” x 1.5” dia.

Two cogon grass stands:
80 x 5 cm dia. / 31.5” x 2” dia.

Two wood mallets:
20 x 2.5 cm dia. / 8” x 1” dia.

Location:
Ban Mae Wa Luang
Mae Wa Luang, A. Song Yang
Tak Province, Thailand

Owner / Instrument Maker: Ou Sa, Karen instrument maker

Catalog Number: 6508