Tautirut Explained

The tautirut (Inuktitut syllabics: Inuktitut: ᑕᐅᑎᕈᑦ or tautiruut, also known as the Eskimo fiddle) is a bowed zither native to the Inuit culture of Canada.

Lucien M. Turner described the "Eskimo violin" in 1894 as being

The Canadian anthropologist Ernest William Hawkes described the tautirut in 1916:

Origin

The tautirut, along with the Apache fiddle are among the few First Nations chordophones which may possibly be pre-Columbian in origin.^[1] Ethnomusicologist Anthony Baines and others have noted the similarity of the tautirut to the Icelandic fiðla^[2] and Shetland gue.

Peter Cooke believed that the tautiruts limited distribution around the Hudson Bay area indicated that it was introduced to the Inuit by Hudson's Bay Company sailors from the Orkney and Shetland Islands.^[3]

External links

• Tautirut in the collection of the Faculté de musique, Université de Montréal

Further reading

• Hawe's Eskimo Music, in: Scientific American: Supplement, Munn and Co., 1917, p. 187f.
• E. Y. Arima and M. Einarsson, Whence and Where the Eskimo Fiddle?, Folk, vol 18, 1976
• The academics Maija Lutz and Susan Kaplan have been noted as having studied the Eskimo fiddle.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Beverley Diamond, M. Sam Cronk, Franziska Von Rosen, Contributor M. Sam Cronk, Franziska Von Rosen. Visions of sound: musical instruments of First Nations communities in Northeastern America. University of Chicago Press, 1994, 978-0-226-14476-4. Pg 56.
2. Anthony Baines. The Oxford companion to musical instruments. Oxford University Press, 1992, 978-0-19-311334-3Pg 189.
3. Peter Cooke. The fiddle tradition of the Shetland Isles. CUP Archive, 1986., 978-0-521-26855-4. p. 5.
4. Book: Llano Estacado Center for Advanced Professional Studies and Research. Liberal and Fine Arts Research Institute. Liberal and fine arts review. 25 April 2011. 1983. Liberal and Fine Arts Research Institute of the Llano Estacado Center for Advanced Professional Studies and Research, Eastern New Mexico University.