This paper proposes that the tonal organization of music originated from the cross-modal correspondence between auditory and spatial perception, shaped by the topography of one's living environment. Drawing on 33 identified physical attributes that listeners associate with musical structures, it argues that music functions as a system of spatial abstraction of typical properties of physical objects and their motion. The hypothesis is tested through comparative ethnographic analysis of Samoyedic and neighboring cultures of Northeastern Eurasia — Nenets, Khanty, Komi, and Chukchi — whose contrasting methods of spatial navigation, cosmological beliefs, pictorial representation, and traditional art correspond systematically to the contrasting typologies of tonal organization in their music. The Nenets ekmelic (indefinite-pitch) tonal organization, characterized by wave-like melodic formulas and non-incremental cycling, is shown to reflect the demands of celestial navigation in featureless tundra, whereas the emmelic (defined-pitch) organization of Khanty music mirrors their landmark-based forest navigation.

This paper is an expanded and revised version of Appendix VII from: Nikolsky, A. (2016). Evolution of tonal organization in music optimizes neural mechanisms in symbolic encoding of perceptual reality. Part-2: Ancient to modern. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 211. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00211. The present edition (2026) substantially elaborates the original appendix with additional evidence and analysis, and has been revised for an interdisciplinary scholarly readership. The broken audio links were replaced by references to supplementary audio files hosted in this Zenodo record.