Ala flute is an aerophonic instrument, free-vibrated reed branch. Ala flute is made of a hornless bamboo section with two open ends, fifty centimeters in length and two centimeters in diameter. A small hole is pierced at one end to attach a rectangular box with reed. Three pressing holes in a straight line but slanted an angle of 90˚ toward the box with reed are pierced at the other end. Ala flute is played in daily activities and usually played as solo or to accompany love-exchange singing. In performance, the players hold the full reed part in his/her mouth. Different from the aerophonic instruments, players inhale to play ala flute. When inhaling, the thumb of the right hand is used to open and cover one end of the sections, the fingers of the left hand are used to press the three pressing holes as playing common flutes. The ambitus of the ala flute is an octave.

The đinh tác ta is an aerophonic instrument made of a hornless bamboo section put through a dry gourd. At the hornless bamboo part inside the gourd, there is a bamboo reed. The rest of the bamboo part has three pressing holes. When playing, the instrumentalist holds the knob of the gourd in his mouth while his left thumb covers or opens the other end. His right thumb, forefinger, and middle finger press the three holes on the section. Đinh tác ta’s timbre is loud and clear. Only men play this instrument in the fields or on the roads; it is rarely performed in the village.

This is a recording of the famous khoomiichi (khoomii singer) Davaajav. Khoomii is a singing technique that creates a whistling sound by resonating the overtones of low voices in the mouth. Khoomii is well known as a singing tradition that symbolizes Mongolian culture.

This is a recording of the Mongolian flute tsuur. The player holds what looks like a simple tube in the mouth, half covering the hole, and blows into it while also producing sounds from the throat. This piece was played by a fifteen-year-old boy who learned how to play the tsuur from his late grandfather.

The huur is an instrument played by flicking a metallic piece with the mouth half-open. This recording was played by a male of the Tsaatan tribe that raises reindeer by Khuvsgul Lake in the high mountains. One can hear the intentional inclusion of wind-like sounds in the playing.

This is the history of how native Yapese learned to use indigenous betel nuts (areca nuts). Native Yapese added pepper leaf and coral lime powder to betel nut and called it langad. Langad was not used by the native Yapese until it was introduced by a friendly ghost who was stranded on the main island of Yap several hundreds of years ago. The ghost, whose name was Llong, was left behind by his companion Luug. Llong then settled himself at the Ron’uw village in the northwestern part of the island. For some reason, Llong relocated himself to Gilyaboch village on the Gakaan peninsula on the western side of the island. There he lived and began making and setting fish traps along the water. Day after day, the natives saw him and wondered what he was doing in the water and who he was. The natives approached him and became friends with him. Llong taught them how to make fish traps and how to set them in the water to catch fish. When setting the traps, branchy corals were required to be placed on and around the traps to cover them. Collecting branchy corals almost every day for the traps, the natives asked Llong if those corals were edible, seeing that they were almost everywhere in the fishing ground. He replied that they were edible, but needed to be processed in advance. So they collected some of the branchy corals and brought them onto land. Thereafter, Llong taught and showed them how to make lime powder out of branchy corals. Llong explained that the powder shouldn’t be taken alone, but could only be taken with two more elements. Llong ordered the natives to bring betel nuts and pepper leaves. Native Yapese at that time used the trunks of betel nut trees only for building houses, but did not use the nuts. Llong gathered everything up and demonstrated how it use it. He added a little amount of powder in a split betel nut and wrapped a piece of pepper leaf around it, putting it in his mouth and chewing on it. After he chewed the mixture, he spat the bloody red liquid out of his mouth. It looked very interesting to the natives, so they tried it right away. Eventually, everyone had a chance to try the newly discovered products. They all felt high from using them and began singing, dancing, and enjoying the sensation until they all felt tired and wanted to take a nap. During their naps, Llong bestowed his blessings upon the langad ingredients so the natives would have the interest or the urge to use them again. When they woke up from the short nap, they were sober and all surprised to see the redness on their lips as well as the spit marks on the ground. They got worried and concerned that their chief in Lamear village might find out what they had done, so they kept it a secret from him. Later, they decided to pay the chief a visit and present him the langad. The chief tried it for the first time and was very impressed. He showed his great excitement, saying that he had never experienced such a euphoria. From then on, he proclaimed the tradition that the people should offer him the langad on a regular basis. This is the story of how native Yapese started using betel nuts. It began in Gilyaboch village, but quickly spread to their chief in Lamear village and to other allies on the island. This knowledge of chewing betel nut with coral lime powder spread throughout the island and became a tradition of the Yapese culture hundreds of years ago. Langad is now a part of daily lives in Yap. It is widely used for social gatherings, community meetings and events, funerals, and so much more.

Ng’ngốc is the name of the Mnông ethnic minority, referring to the Jew’s harp. Ng’ngốc is a thin bamboo piece with two crossing lines cut in the middle to create two sides of an isosceles triangle. The bottom side is located at the instrument body. This triangle is the reed of this instrument. T he performer puts this instrument between his two lips without touching his teeth. His left hand keeps this instrument steady, and the right one shakes the instrument very slightly to create sounds inside his mouth. Changing the shape of his mouth will create some overtones, different from the sound created by the reed. The sound from this instrument is soft and slightly cracked.

This audio is a story of two poor, young girls and a demon by the name of Yathyath that transformed into a rock. This history was told by Fithingmew, Mu’ut, and Bapilung from the Old Age Program in Yap back in the 1970s. There was a family, a couple and their two young daughters, who lived in Alog village, in the middle of the island far from the shoreline. The family was so poor that they always lacked food. When the girls grew old enough to walk far distances, their parents sometimes sent them to gather seashells on the west shore of the island. But their father taught them not to pass through the peninsula by Arngel village, so the girls had to walk a far distance from their home to the shore to collect shells and clams for the family. They never went near the peninsula. However, one evening, when they collected shells and clams across from Kanif shoreline, their torch went out. They looked ahead of them and saw a soft, shimmering light by the peninsula. They thought it was someone’s torch, so they started walking toward the light in the hope of asking for fire to light up their own torch. Soon after, they noticed that it was not fire, but phosphorescent light on a demon’s body. They were so scared that they turned around and ran as fast as they could. Yathyath, the demon, kept chasing them. The younger sister was so scared. She cried out in fear, and the older sister told her to dump some of the shells and clams from their basket to distract the demon. The demon slowed down and started eating the shells and clams, but it soon chased them again. The younger sister cried out again for help. As they got closer to their village, their father heard his little girl crying out and knew that the demon was after them. He quickly filled up the fireplace in the house with big pieces of flint stones and clamshells to heat them up. The girls made it home and were quickly let in by their father. The demon also ran into their house, where the stones and clamshells in the fire were extremely hot. The father fooled the demon, telling it to stand by the door and open its mouth wide so he could throw the two girls in its mouth. The demon did so, wishing for a big meal. Instead, the father slightly opened the fireplace and dumped the hot stones and clamshells into the demon’s mouth. The demon turned away in pain and headed back away from the village. Along its way on wulk’uf savannah, the demon threw up all the flint stones it had swallowed earlier. It fell to the ground and died on wulk’uf savannah, between Alog and Maa’ villages in Weloy municipality. Then the demon transformed into a big, black rock. The black rock and the pieces of flint stones still stand near the wulk’uf savannah.