The ''maguhu'' ( 馬骨胡; simplified:

马 Radical 187 or radical horse () meaning "horse" is one of the 8 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 10 stroke (CJK character), strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 472 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this R ...

骨胡;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: mǎgǔhú) is a Chinese

bowed Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to t ...

string instrument in the ''

huqin ''Huqin'' () is a family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music. The instruments consist of a round, hexagonal, or octagonal sound box at the bottom with a neck attached that protrudes ...

'' family of

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

. It has two strings and its sound box is made from the

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

bone of a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...

(or alternatively a

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...

or mule). The front end of the sound box is covered with snake skin (or, alternatively, shark or frog skin), and the end of the neck is carved in the shape of a horse's head. The ''maguhu'' is used primarily by the

Zhuang Zhuang may refer to: *Zhuang people The Zhuang (; ; za, Bouxcuengh, italic=yes; ) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and ...

and

Buyei The Bouyei (also spelled ''Puyi'', ''Buyei'' and ''Buyi''; self called: Buxqyaix, or "Puzhong", "Burao", "Puman"; ; vi, người Bố Y), otherwise known as the Zhongjia, are an ethnic group living in Southern Mainland China. Numbering 2.5 mi ...

peoples of the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. It is used in the ensemble that accompanies ''guiju'' (桂剧; Guangxi opera) and is also used in the ''bayin'' (

八 Radical 12 or radical eight (), meaning ''eight'' or ''all'', is one of 23 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of two strokes. "八" is two bent lines that signal '' divide''. Eight is the single-digit number that can be divided by two t ...

音) ensemble of the Zhuang people (along with the ''

tuhu The ''tuhu'' (土胡, pinyin: tǔhú) is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. It is used primarily by non-Han ethnic groups of southern China, particularly the Zhuang, who live in the Guangxi province and us ...

'', ''

huluhu The ''huluhu'' (traditional: 葫蘆胡; simplified: 葫芦胡; pinyin: húlúhú) is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the '' huqin'' family of instruments. It has two strings, and its sound box is made from a gourd, with a face made of thin ...

'', ''

sanxian The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several sizes ...

'', drums, cymbals, and other instruments). The instrument's name is derived from the Chinese words ''mǎ gǔ'', meaning "horse bone," and ''hú'' (short for ''huqin'').

External links

Maguhu page
(Chinese)

(Chinese)
Maguhu page
(Chinese)
Maguhu photo
Chinese musical instruments Drumhead lutes Huqin family instruments {{huqin-stub

See also

External links