EurasianStudies_0110..

January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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and call it “koto”. Its variations appear elsewhere as well, the “kaja-gum” in Korea, the “ku-csin” in
China and the “valiha” in Madagascar. The Indians call it “vina” and received it through Scythian
intermediaries. The Old Testament knows about the zither as “kinnor” and “negina”. Egypt named it
“kánun” and this is how it is known in North Africa. Our zither is identical with the Finnish “kanetele”
and the Ukrainian “bandura”. Pythagoras used is an instrument to measure the distance between notes
and the Pellazg also called it zither. This is proven by Csaba Varga. The Greeks also used its monochord.
The West borrowed it from us, Praetorius in 1619 mentions the “scheitholz” as a popular musical
instrument. It is the basis of the French épinette, the Norwegian Langley, the Danish humle, the Swedish
hummel, the German Scheitholt.
In 1862 Max Amberger built the modern concert zither. Otto Hermann studied the zither at the end of
the last century. It is the favourite musical instrument of the Carpathian-basin Hungarians, except the
Moldavian Csángós. Because of unknown reasons it has not remained among them. According to old
Székelys of Csík, during World War I, soldiers from the Plains of Hungary made it popular in
Székelyföld. In the Carpathian-basin the better known zithers are: the lobe zither, loft zither,
horse-headed zither, gutty zither, two cased zither, inner-headed zither, harp zither, four cased zither,
and diatonic zither. In the Lowlands they also call it tambourine. The value of each one is raised with the
fact that they are beautifully carved. The tuning up of the two rowed zither is seen by the history as
Hungarian method. The layout of the tune string, bass string and the elbow string depends mostly on
the knowledge of the zither maker. Once upon a time every village of Hétfalu had skilful zither makers.
In our schooldays we used to hitch differently strained rubber, with which we imitated the zither.
The instrument has a rectangle shape; its length is half meter long. On one of the linear sides of it, we
find the stopper, the graduated cylinder. The two rowed frets are placed on the stopper at different
distances. On the external row there are the seven shaft notes, at the width of two and a half octave, and
on the internal row we find the chromatic notes. This coincides with the role of the black and white keys
on the piano. Next to the stopper on the right side is the flanker where they play it. The Hungarian zither
has mostly mixolid scale, it is a quintet instrument. Without transposing it is in harmony with the
C-major, D Dorian, E-frig, g mixolid type of melody. Kálmány Lajos (1852-1919) ethnographer and Kiss
Lajos folk song researcher dealt with the zither, too.
The Hungarian dance of the Csángós in Barcaság, the “csűrdöngölő”, the “csárdás” called slow
Hungarian, became universal in the last century. Among the musicians there were the zitherists, too.
Before Christmas the men chose their representatives in the dance house or in the spinner house, they
performed the inauguration of the boys and girls, they rented a dance house, hired the musicians, and
with the learning of the songs they were getting ready for the series of holiday greetings and dancing. In
the time of the conglomeration between Christmas and New Year’s, men gathered and ate at the shared
accommodation. The leader was the front man, its replacement was the second man, and the writings
were made by the notary. The greetings and felicitations which travelled from door to door, were spread
by the spokesmen, the songs were led by the cantor. The Bíró, Kántor and Kulcsár survived as surnames.
The calling and taking of the girls to dance was the girl divisor’s job, and if the girls were late than they
were carried in by horse in a cart or wheelbarrow. The toll was the “janitor”, the water carrier also took
care of watering the floor, the sorting of the dances was the job of the dance master, the filterer. The
judge imposed punishments for the violations, and this was the job of the punisher, clapper or clapper
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