Ethnographic evidence tells us that gender was attributed to sound tools in various ways, some of these being based only obliquely on the physical characteristics of males and females. In Māori culture, for instance, one instrument, the putorino, possesses the physical attributes of both males and females and is subjected to dual animisation. When blown at its centre, as a flute, it is regarded as a female instrument and when blown at the end, as a trumpet then being seen as male. When accepting this local view of the instrument, the two blowing apertures may be seen as resembling male and female genitalia. However, the big question remains of whether one might interpret them in that way were one not to know how the instrument was seen by its users?
The overall form of the putorino resembles that of the female case-moth, who attaches herself to leaves on bushes and hangs there, singing with her pure, high voice so as to attract the male moths. The Māori Goddess of music and dance, Hine Raukatauri, also takes the form of the female case-moth and is also the Goddess of the flute. This richness of information about the instrument is, of course, generally not available to us in archaeological material. The putorino, as an instrument which can be blown both as a flute and as a trumpet possesses both female and male attributes. See Figure 4k.5a.1 in Horn and Trumpet