Whistling with an Acorn Cap

We all know the best you can do with an acorn (turn it into an oak), but what can we do with a cupule? One answer is: whistle! It is a good skill to learn. If you are ever lost in the woods, you can use it to emit a shrill call for help or to whistle a happy tune so that no one knows you are afraid. In some regions of the world there seems to have been a long tradition of acorn-cap whistling, particularly among Spanish goatherds. In Mexico, too, children are known to use acorns for whistling. Based on this photo from the Manual para la propagación de Quercus by Maricela Rodríguez Acosta and Allen Coombes, it appears that Mexican children use the acorn to make a whistle, rather than the acorn cap:

Below are some videos to help you learn how to whistle with an acorn cap. Perhaps we could hold a whistling competing at the next IOS Conference?

Here are kid friendly step-by-step instructions from Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, including hygienic precautions!

This one shows how piercing the cupule whistle can be:

This one is from Spain and by far the most melodic I have come across. It uses a different technique, placing the cap between the middle and ring fingers of one hand, rather than between both thumbs. It is in Spanish, so I have added a translation of the text below (note that the speaker uses the unusual term cascabullo to refer to the acorn cup—more about that here):

Text:

Well, I'm going to tell you that the goatherds who were around these fields in the north of Extremadura made “music”. At least they taught me about it, my father taught me about it. You take an acorn cap, something as simple as this, which you see here, and well this cap is really the upper part of the acorn. They spread out their hand and put it in between the fingers, they made a kind of bevel, let's see if it works now, I don't know if you see it well there, see? The bevel. So when you blow…

[Whistling]

You don't get it right away, look how it is placed. So that’s it, that’s how it was taught to me, I tell you about it and you try it and tell others about it. See you later.

Another Spanish version, stronger on sound, not so much on melody (he uses a Quercus ilex acorn cap and he mentions another Spanish word for acorn-cap: mangurrio)

@doctor_folk El #mangurrio un sencillo #silbato con una #bellota #cuidatustradiciones #aprendeentiktok #hazlotumismo #tradiciones #extremadura #cabreros ♬ Nature Sounds Lullaby - Nature Sounds Music

Text:

We are going to take advantage of this morning walk through the countryside to make a whistle with the acorn cap or the mangurrio, it is also called that. We have here a beautiful encina (Q. ilex) loaded to the top with acorns. So we approach this branch that has quite a few acorns. We pick up one that the tree kindly gives us and we keep this part, the top part. We take the cascabullo, we place it between the fingers like this, we close our fingers in this position. We just have to put it to our lips now and blow on that acorn cap.

[Whistling]

Now it's your turn to do it. Take care of your traditions and take advantage of everything that nature gives us, as the ancients did.

Different technique, allowing for a vibrato effect, played by taborer Gillian Guest:

(Don't know what a taborer is? Find out here.)

And lastly a fortississimo from Mexico:

With thanks to Rob Guest for introducing me to this topic