The musical bow (bowstring or string bow, a subset of bar zithers) is a simple

string instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

used by a number of African peoples as well as Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 10 feet (0.5 to 3 m) long, and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch. It is uncertain if the musical bow developed from the hunting bow, though the San or Bushmen people of the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid climate, semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African ...

do convert their hunting bows to musical use. Types of bow include mouth-resonated string bow, earth-resonated string bow, and gourd-resonated string bow.

History

There is speculation that the hunting bow may have been used as a musical instrument from as early as circa 13,000 B.C.

Henri Breuil Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil (), was a French Catholic Church, Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He studied cave art in the Somme ( ...

surveyed the Trois Frères in France caves and made an engraving that attempted to reproduce a c. 13,000 B.C. cave painting into a black-and-white lithograph engraving. His engraving showed a mysterious figure, a "man camouflaged to resemble a bison," in the midst of a mass of herd-animals, "herding the beasts and playing the musical bow." The artwork is confused, and those who are trying to reproduce the art in color have had to work to bring out legible images. One interpretation of the "magician-hunter" image considers his hunting-bow to be a musical bow, used as a single-stringed musical instrument. Whether the bow in the cave illustration is a musical instrument or the hunting tool in a Paleolithic hunt, musicologists have considered whether the bow could be a possible relative or ancestor to the

chordophone In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

: the

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

lyre The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin ''lyra)'' is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute family of instruments. In organology, a ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

, and

zither Zither (; , from the Greek ''cithara'') is a class of stringed instruments. The modern instrument has many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a ...

family. Curt Sachs said that there was good reason not to consider ''hunters' bows'' as likely musical bows. One reason was that the oldest known musical bows were 10 feet long, useless for hunting, and that "musical bows were not associated with hunters' beliefs and ceremonies." Sachs considered the musical bows important, however. He pointed out that the name for the Greek lute, ''

pandura The pandura (, ''pandoura'') or pandore, an ancient Greek string instrument, belonged in the broad class of the lute and guitar instruments. Akkadian Empire, Akkadians played similar instruments from the 3rd millennium BC. Ancient Greece, Ancien ...

'' was likely derived from ''pan-tur'', a Sumerian word meaning "small bow." He considered this evidence in support of the theory that the musical bow was ancestral to the pierced lute. The bows used for music required a resonator, a hollowed object like a bowl, a gourd, or a musician's mouth, in order to produce audible sound. Although the musical bow could be manipulated to produce more than one tone, instruments were developed from it that used one note per string. Since each string played a single note, adding strings added new notes for instrument families such as bow harps, harps, and lyres. In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and

chords Chord or chords may refer to: Art and music * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord, a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * The Chords (British band), 1970s British mod ...

. Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute. Musical bows are still used in a number of cultures today. It can be found as far south as

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

, and as far east as eastern Africa,

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, and

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

. and also outside of Africa, as in the case of

berimbau The berimbau (, borrowed from Kimbundu ''mbirimbau'') is a traditional Angolan musical bow that is commonly used in Brazil. It is also known as ''sekitulege'' among the Baganda and Busoga. It consists of a single-stringed bow attached to a gourd ...

, malunga (derivations of the African musical bow) or the Appalachian mouth-bow.

Playing ways

The usual way to make the bow sound is to pluck the string, although sometimes a subsidiary bow is used to scrape the string, much as on a

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

. The Onavillu of

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

sounds when struck with a thin stick. Unlike string instruments used in

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

, however, they do not have a built-in resonator, although resonators may be made to work with the bow in a number of ways. The most usual type of resonator consists of a

gourd Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly '' Cucurbita'' and '' Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. Many gourds ha ...

attached to the back of the string bearer. The bow may also be stood in a pit or gourd on the ground, or one end of it may be partially placed in the mouth. This last method allows the size of the resonator to be varied as the instrument is played, thus allowing a

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

to be heard consisting of the

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

s resonating in the player's mouth. As well as these various forms of resonators, the bow is frequently played without a resonator at all. In Africa, the musical bow is usually played by a solo performer. In

capoeira Capoeira () is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and game that includes elements of dance, acrobatics, capoeira music, music, and spirituality. It likely originated from enslaved Mbundu people, of the Kingdom of Ndongo, in present-day Angola. The ...

, the berimbau is played as part of the roda, a musical group standing in a circle, in the centre of which the capoeiristas perform or play. The Appalachian mouth-bow can be played amplified in

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dance, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering ...

jams.

In Africa

''See'': Uhadi musical bow ''See'':

Umuduri The umuduri is a Burundian and Rwandan stringed instrument. It is a musical bow consisting of a string supported by a flexible wooden string bearer or bow that is 125–135 cm in length. The string is traditionally made from plant fiber and ...

Due to the nature of their construction and playing, musical bows are quiet instruments, therefore needing a resonator to resound. The resonator can either be a

(as in ''uhadi'', ''umakhweyana'', ''segankure'', ''xitende'', ''

'', etc.) or the player's mouth (as in ''umrhubhe'', ''umqangala'', ''tshihwana'', ''xizambi'', etc.) Musical bows are the main instruments of the Nguni and Sotho people, the predominant peoples of South Africa. Historians believe that many of the musical bows came from

Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...

peoples. Although there are many differences between musical bows, all of them share two things: a resonator, and at least two fundamental notes. The strongest notes are the

fundamentals Fundamental may refer to: * Foundation of reality * Fundamental frequency, as in music or phonetics, often referred to as simply a "fundamental" * Fundamentalism, the belief in, and usually the strict adherence to, the simple or "fundamental" idea ...

, the deepest notes produced by the string, whereas the higher notes (the harmonic partials) are produced by the resonator. There are at least two fundamental notes produced by all musical bows, an ''open'' (when the player does not shorten it or touch it) and a ''closed'' (where the string is shortened or stopped by the player's hand). In

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

they are called ''vu'' (from the word ''Vuliwe'', 'open') and ''ba'' (from ''Banjiwe'', 'held') respectively. These two notes can already be on the string, if it is divided or stopped by a string attached to the gourd, as in the case of ''umakhweyana'', ''xitende'', ''berimbau'', ''hungu'', etc. The pitch difference between a ''vu'' and a ''ba'' is usually about a

whole tone In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more deta ...

. In certain places, it can be closer to a

semitone A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between ...

(e.g. Zulu) or closer to a

minor third In music theory, a minor third is a interval (music), musical interval that encompasses three half steps, or semitones. Staff notation represents the minor third as encompassing three staff positions (see: interval (music)#Number, interval numb ...

(Tsonga). Some of those instruments have more than two notes, for example the Zulu ''umakhweyana'' and the Tsonga ''xitende'' have three, whereas the Venda ''tshihwana'' has four.

Other names

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Twee Samo muzikanten bespelen de muziekboog TMnr 20010314

Musical bows are known by various names in the different languages of South Africa - some refer only to musical bows using gourds as resonators, others using the mouth: * Akele: ''ngongo'' *

Kimbundu Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola. Its speakers are concentrated in the n ...

: ''hungu'' * Nguni: ''makhoyane'' * Pedi: ''lekope'' * S. Sotho: '' lesiba'', ''thomo'', ''setolotolo'' *

Tepehuán The Tepehuán are an Indigenous people of Mexico. They live in Northwestern, Western, and some parts of North-Central Mexico. The Indigenous Tepehuán language has three branches: Northern Tepehuan language, Northern Tepehuan, Southeastern Tepe ...

: ''gat'' *

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu languages, Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Tswanaland, ...

: ''segankure'' *

Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ...

: ''xizambi'', ''xitende'' *

Umbundu Umbundu, or South Mbundu (autonym ''úmbúndú''), one of many Bantu languages, is the most widely-spoken autochthonous language of Angola. Its speakers are known as ''Ovimbundu'' and are an ethnic group constituting a third of Angola's populati ...

: ''ombulumbumba'' *

Venda Venda ( ), officially the Republic of Venda (; ), was a Bantustan in northern South Africa. It was fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while, to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black hom ...

: ''tshihwana'', ''lugube'', ''tshijolo'' *

: ''uhadi'', ''umrhubhe'', ''umqunge'', ''inkinge'' * Zulu: ''umakhweyana'', ''ugubu'', ''umqangala'', ''umhubhe'' * !Kung: ''m'bolumbumba'' *

Lingala Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...

: ''tolo-tolo'' *umqangala

In other places

The most popular musical bow today is the

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian adaptation of the musical bow, the

, most commonly associated with the jogo de capoeira. Kse diev, a gourd resonated "musical bow cum stick" whose

string String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

is made out of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

, is used in Cambodia and is considered one of the oldest Cambodian instruments, with bas-reliefs going back to the 12th century AD. Has been thought of as musical bow; under Hornbostel-Sachs classification, it is a "Musical bow cum stick" because it has only one curved end to flex. Under Hornbostel-Sachs, musical bows are defined as flexible and curved string bearers or as stick zithers with both ends flexible and curved. Malunga, a musical bow made of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

, gut strings, and a

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

gourd is used by the

Siddi The Siddi (), also known as the Sheedi, Sidi, or Siddhi, are an ethno-religious group living mostly in Pakistan. Some Siddis also live in India. They are primarily descended from the Bantu peoples of the Zanj coast in Southeast Africa, most ...

people of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, of African origin. Belembaotuyan is found in Guam, probably introduced through trade between

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

in the nineteenth century. Bobre, musical bow of

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

and

. Kunkulkawe is the name of a musical bow found among the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

people in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. Piompirintzi is the name of a musical bow found among the Ashaninka people in Peru. Latajkiaswolé is the name of a musical bow found among the Wichi, Pilaga, and other tribes of the

Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or simply Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland tropical dry broadleaf forest natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion o ...

region of

. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

a musical bow is primarily found in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, where it is called a "mouthbow" or "mouth bow". In northwestern Mexico, the

Indians of

Durango Durango, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Durango, is one of the 31 states which make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in the northwest portion of the country. With a population of 1,832,650 ...

use the musical bow during their mitote. The Tepehuán's musical bow has a gourd attached to it. The kalumbu is played by the

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

and Ila people of

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. The ''ku'' is a Maori instrument from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, made of matai wood and a fibre string, and is tapped with a rod. The ukeke is a three-stringed musical bow from

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, played using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The Yelatáj chos woley is a musical bow (played with another bow), from the Wichí culture of the Argentinian

. In the Caribbean, on the island of

Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...

, the benta is a one-stringed musical bow, played using the mouth as a resonating chamber. Most probably brought to the island by Africans from Ghana, Angola, Nigeria during the slave trade, it is played as a leading instrument in "muzik di zumbi", ghost music (zumbi means ghost). The name refers to the spooky atmosphere on the plantations since there was no electricity, and the hauling wind carries the sound of the music in all directions. It is mostly accompanied by drum, hoe and "wiri" (scraper of a serrated piece of iron). The Curaçaoan benta resembles the

ian berimbao, the

n malunga, the Hawaiïan ukeke, and string bows of several

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n countries. A variant called the "whizzing bow", which is swung with the arm in a circle is played in Central America, China, Indonesia, and west Africa.Whizzing Bow

Oxford Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

, published January 20, 2001.

References

External links

History and playing instructions for the Appalachian mouthbow
by

Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverley Jean Santamaria; February 20, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist. Sainte-Marie's singing and writing repertoire includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism, and h ...

for the Cradleboard Teaching Project
British Library, David Rycroft South Africa Collection: Musical bow lecture examples 1979: Zulu umakhweyanaBritish Library, David Rycroft South Africa Collection: Guitar talk tape A: Umakhweyana musical bow solo
*Muzik di zumbi, benta played by Issoco in Curaçao
Isocco Performance @ Curacao International Song Festival 1987
{{Authority control Zithers African musical instruments Music of Africa Appalachian culture