He also gives an illustration of a native Mbuba playing on a strung bow, and holding the string between his teeth thrumbing it the while (he by frequently altering the shape of the mouth-cavity varied the sounds to agree with the changing resonance), in fact, making a jew’s harp of it, which is a singular confirmation of the view I take, tracing the origin of stringed instruments to the bow.
| The Kissar. |
Fig. 52. |
The picture of a Kissar here given is taken from a fine specimen presented to the South Kensington Museum by the late Viceroy of Egypt, it has strings of camel gut, and a plectrum made of horn, which is used alone or associated with the fingers. All harps it should be remembered are, as occasion may require, subject to the use of one hand for damping the strings, which else would continue sounding too long for the right effect in the performance of the music.
From a rude instrument of this kind the true Greek lyre was in course of time evolved. I trace the intermediate stages still by the banks of the Nile. They call it in Nubia the Kisirka, and by other kindred names in the heart of Africa. That the bar slants is particularly a feature to be noticed, and that the tops of the uprights or horns pass through this bar. The construction of the sounding body is arranged in a square form as of a stretching framework of reeds or rods, and is covered by a skin usually. In fact the frame suggests to me the coracle or fishing punt, seen in the sculptured slabs from Assyria and Babylonia. The idea of the instrument may be originally based upon a shallow coracle, the supporting seat in the interior affording fixture for the uprights, in the same way as we have seen in boats. (Fig. [47]).
One of these slabs contains representations of three players upon harps having the same slant bar for the strings, the particular utility of which is in its enabling players to tune the strings by pushing them higher up, or pressing them a little lower in position, thus changing the tension as they desired for the pitch of any string, a method which we find was retained in Egypt during long periods.
The slab from which this illustration is taken is one recovered from the palace of Ashur-nasir-pal at Nimroud. The slabs possessed by the British Museum date some of them as far back as 875 B.C., so that they are not nearly so old as the Egyptian pictures, although the character is apparently more archaic. Nevertheless the Babylonian Antiquities range back to dates almost as ancient, that is to 4500 B.C. So that there is justification for the belief that these harps were in use in
