Hun (Jew's Harp)

Idioglotte jaw harp from Thailand with quiver (exact origin not specified). According to Curt Sachs (1917), it belongs to the type of bamboo jaw harp with a stepped tongue and handle that is widespread in Southeast Asia.

Hun ( Thai หุน ) is a frame mouth harp made of bamboo that is played in the Isan region in northeast Thailand and in the adjacent lowlands of Laos . In the province of Nakhon Ratchasima this pot is called idiophon hia .

The hun consists of a 12 to 15 centimeter long and 1.5 to 2 centimeter wide bamboo strip with a movable tongue, which is either idioglott or glued on with a black wax ( khisut ). The khisut is obtained from an insect and is used instead of beeswax to glue the chanter of the mouth organ khaen and the panpipe wot together. If the tongue was cut out of the same material as the frame, the hun belongs to the older type of idioglottic jaw harp, which is found mainly in Southeast Asia and is often made of bamboo. The genggong played in Balinese music and the music of Lombok is relatively well known . Other Southeast Asian bamboo jaw harps are the angkuoch in Cambodia , the ruding in northern Borneo , the kubing in Mindanao and the ncas of the Hmong in Thailand.

The player holds the hun against the top row of teeth in front of his open mouth. The bamboo tongue points towards the mouth, while the frame is plucked with the fingers at the protruding end. Depending on the position of the mouth, individual overtones can be emphasized in order to change the pitch and the sound. The soft-sounding hun is usually played solo for entertainment. In contrast to ethnic groups in the highlands of Laos and Vietnam , the player does not use the hun as a magical tool in rituals to change his voice, and not for courtship.

literature

• Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Terry E. Miller, Sean Williams (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia . Routledge, London 1998, p. 318
• Terry E. Miller: Hun. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 726

Individual evidence

1. ^ Curt Sachs : The Jew's Harp. A typological preliminary study . In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Volume 49, Issue 4/6, 1917, pp. 185–200, here p. 192