EurasianStudies_0110..

January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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BENCZE, Mihály
Ancient Musical Instruments of Barcaság 1
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 music for dancing parties as well as for military recruiting
was insured by lute, lyre, zither, violin, bagpipe, blow-pipe, flute, drum and also by brass bands. In his
description of Székelyföld, Balázs Orbán mentions the lute as an ancient musical instrument of the
Csángós of Hétfalu: “the lute is a guitar-like musical instrument that has five ribs, a short neck and eight
strings, these are played with feathers and it replaces in the orchestras the difficult-to-move cymbal and I
may not be mistaken if I identify this with the lute used by old-time poets, as its name also suggests.”
Our ancient culture, the Sumerian and later the Egyptian also mentions musical instruments similar
to this. Scythian archaeological findings also contain it. I would like to present an interesting relation.
The ancestor of stringed instruments was the stretched bowstring, our ancestors – the Hungarian people,
too – were regarded by the chroniclers as the best bowmen. Onto the stretched bowstring, to make it
sound better, an empty pumpkin's shell was fastened. The most suitable for this is the bottle-gourd of
which hard shell is a great amplifier. The mandolin, the tambura is white just like the bottle-gourd.
White was the ancient colour of the Cumanians – let us not forget white funerals as ancient customs that
was still practised in Bácsfalu around 1964 – our word for pumpkin (“tök”, Hung.) is of Cumanian origin
and is a relative to our word for sphere (“teke”, Hung.) that is globe. The bottle-gourd is
ball-like and white that is it has a belly like a sphere (“teke-alakú”, Hung.). The violin's ancient Kabarian
name is the lute (“koboz”, Hung.) that was a reference to the bottle-gourd. Consequently in Csík it is
called “hedegű” which is more correct since it was also the aspirate pronunciation of our word for nerve
(“ideg” – “hedeg”, Hung.). The violin's twisting head has the shape of a goat's horns; its opening is in the
shape of an egg and is twice curved in Kabarian-style. Its name had to be “koboz”, “kobuz”, “kobor”. In
German the bow is called “Bogen”, to bend is “biegen” which sounds similar to the Bock he-goat. Our
words for bending (“hajol”, “hajlít” and “kajla”, Hung.) are identical with the Cumanian word for snake,
“kijó”, “haijó”.
The short-necked, ball-like bellied, eight-ten stringed lyre-like plucked with a plectrum is the singers'
preferred instrument. At our Moldavian Csángó brothers it has remained known with its old-time
playing mode as the lute. The Kazakhs call it “kobiz”, the Kirghiz “komuz”, the Osman Turks “kopuz”
and “kobuz”. Its short-neck version is the Chinese bipa. The lute is mentioned by Anonymus in Chapter
46 of Gesta Hungarorum. It is a well-liked instrument even today among Arabs; it reached them through
Persian links. The Uyghurs still use it. Just like we used to, they also tune it G, D, g, c or D, a d, g.
According to Zolnay László the first mentioning of the lute – of course after the destruction of the
runic memories by King Stephen – is between 1237-1325, as the name “Choboz” in Veszprém County.
1 The Barcaság (German Burzenland, Romanian Ţara Bârsei) is a historic and ethnographic area in southeastern Transylvania with
a mixed population (Romanian, Hungarian, German).
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