http://www.flickr.com/photos/swedish_heritage_board/3219971422/
Surfing the Flickr commons, i came across this old photo of a ‘Fluteplayer, Lysekil, Sweden’ taken in the 1880’s…
it looks for all the world like a whistle, except it seems to have a different mouthpiece- or no mouthpiece?
I’d love to learn more about it, and something tells me someone here knows the answer!
That’s not a flute. Looks more like a vegetable. Ah - it’s just a very thin Swede.
It is probably a traditional whistle of the kind called “spilåpipa”, but with the mouthpiece on the underside. The swedish museum of music has a similar instrument among their collections:
http://www.musikmuseet.se/samlingar/detalj.php?l=sv&iid=1605&v=2007-12-12%2014:03:57&str=
On Flickr the motive is described as “Itinerant basket vendor playing the flute”. But judging from the content of the bag he has hanging round his neck he is a whistle vendor as well. Scandinavia had a strong whistle tradition during the 19:th century, but it all but died out during the 20:th in favour of fiddles and accordions.
One of the Swedish whistlers here on the Chiffboard plays one of those, and posted some YouTube vids. I forget the name of the instrument. But it’s a fipple flute with a distinctive non-ET tuning.
Could it a Härjedalspipa you’re thinking of? There a picture of one here http://www.harjedalspipan.se/index01.asp along with a couple of other swedish fipple flutes.
Yes! Lovely stuff.
He’s got a heck of a tan and cool shoes too. 
How about “Sopilka (Frilka, Sopivka)”? Here’s where I saw that name:
http://home.att.net/~bandura.ca/VMfolkBook/wind.html
Kristen
Why would a Swede be playing a Ukranian instrument? 
It could also be an Offerdalspipa, which is quite a lot like the Härjedalspipa.
It could also be an Offerdalspipa, which is quite a lot like the Härjedalspipa.
The difference between the offerdalspipa and the härjedalspipa is that the offerdalspipa has a standard tuning whereas the härjedalspipa has a “hovering” or “blue” scale with quartertones. But these days the arre made by the same pipemaker, Gunnar Stenmark.
The ornamentation looks more like a Härjedalspipa, but I guess the tuning would be the deciding factor.
It’s interesting that the photo is tagged Lysekil, which is quite a bit south of Härjedal.
Gunnar Stenmark makes the Härjedalspipa in either traditional or modern tuning.
Gunnar Stenmark makes the Härjedalspipa in either traditional or modern tuning
He used to do that, but to avoid confusion has decided now to limit the procuction so that the härjedalspipa and its offspring, the månmarkapipa, is made in traditional tuning only. Instead he makes a similar whistle, the åspipa, in modern tuning.
LOL!
Absolutely amazing! I KNEW C&F was bound to have someone who would know… but this many someones blows me away!
THANK YOU SO MUCH, everyone! Another mystery solved! 
Assuming that that thing has a fipple with the opening on the bottom, it’s very similar to things played pretty much all over Eastern Europe and called something different in each language. They play them in Bulgaria, in Romania (where some are quite large), and also in many South American countries (where they also can be quite large, called moseno or moxeno).
It’s a strange thing about instruments and languages: there’s a fairly small number of different instruments, and a fairly small number of different names, but the names freely associate with the different instruments from place to place. So, a “duduk” is a mouthblown double reed thing, or a fipple flute, or an open endblown flute, or a bagpipe, or a pipe you put tobacco in depending on which language/region. Likewise a “zampogna” (spelt variously) can be a bagpipe or a panpipe (the idea being several sounds, a symphony).
So is “zampogna” a metathesis (Spoonerism) of “pan zogna”, meaning “all sounds”?