Tautirut
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The tautirut (Inuktitut syllabics: ᑕᐅᑎᕈᑦ or tautiruut, also known as the Eskimo fiddle) is a bowed zither native to the Inuit culture of Canada.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Eskimo_fiddle_Turner_1894_p259.png/640px-Eskimo_fiddle_Turner_1894_p259.png)
Lucien M. Turner described the "Eskimo violin" in 1894 as being
...made of birch or spruce, and the two strings are of coarse, loosely twisted sinew. The bow has a strip of whalebone in place of horsehair, and is resined with spruce gum. This fiddle is held across the lap when played.[2]
The Canadian anthropologist Ernest William Hawkes described the tautirut in 1916:
It consists of a rude box, with a square hole in the top, three sinew strings with bridge and tail-piece and a short bow with a whalebone strip for hair. . . . Most Eskimo fiddles have only one string.[3]