The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use / 'The Strad' Library, No. III.

by Henry Saint-George

FIG. 5.	FIG. 6.

Whether this circumstance is at all confirmatory of the supposition that the rod of the Trigonon was passed between the strings would be difficult to establish irrefutably; doubtless a logician could do so, but I prefer making a simple statement of facts rather than forcing them into agreement with any special theory; although I have plenty of worthy precedents for such a proceeding, for I have observed that most doubtful or disputed questions—the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, for instance—are handled in this manner.

What strikes one very forcibly on looking into the use of the bow in the East is the great number of bowed instruments one finds. Thus in India we have the Ravanastron in various forms; the Omerti (Fig. 6), the Bengalese Sarìndâ, etc.

In China, the Ur-heen, Uh-Ch'in, Saw-oo and Sawduang. In Siam, the Saw-tai, etc. In Turkey and Arabia, the Kemangeh-a-gouz (Fig. 7), Kemangeh-roumy, Rebâb-esh-Sha'er (Fig. 8), and Rebâb-el-maghanny, also the more modern Gunibry.

FIG. 7.	FIG. 8.

In Persia there is also an instrument strongly resembling the Omerti and Kemangeh in outline, called the Sitâra (Fig. 9). Then there is a primitive bowed instrument with three strings, known to the peasants of Russia as the Goudok, which is no doubt an immediate descendant of the three-stringed Rebâb, and, more remotely, of the Ravanastron. Abyssinia too, has its bowed instruments. In fact, the use of the bow is universal in the "glorious Orient," from whence nearly all products of western civilization are derived. In almost all cases great antiquity is ascribed to these instruments. The very name "Kemangeh-a-gouz," ancient in itself, can be roughly translated "ancient-fiddle," thus showing that the Persians [the name is Persian and bears out the Arab records that it came to them from Persia] considered it then a relic of the past, and that it was a survival of some still older instrument inherited, most likely from India. There can be little doubt that Fétis was right in assuming this to have been the Omerti, for, barring the long "tail-pin," the structure of both is almost identical.