THE JEM' SHARP 24 1 



to hear the devil a-preaching, Gellie Duncan, the musician of the party, 

 tripped on before, playing on her jewsharp and singing: 



Cummer, go ye before, cummer go ye; 



Git ye will not go before, cummer, let me. 



The Skene manuscript of Scottish melodies, written about the years 

 1615 to 1620, mentions the trump, and William Daunay commenting 

 on this says the jewsharp was the only instrument of music formerly 

 known to the inhabitants of St. Kilda; and as this isolated, rocky island 

 had only twenty-seven families residing there in 1793, Daunay's state- 

 ment seems credible. 



These few notes and the references scattered through that rich 

 treasury for antiquarians, the English ' Notes and Queries/ are evi- 

 dently written by persons ignorant of the birthplace and great antiquity 

 of the jewsharp; examination of the collection in the TJ. S. National 

 Museum, however, shows that Asia can indubitably claim that distinc- 

 tion, for the primitive models preserved there prove that these musical 

 instruments are widely known throughout the Orient. They are com- 

 mon in the Chinese empire, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, and Japan, as well 

 as in the islands of Borneo, New Guinea, Sumatra, Samoa, Fiji and 

 the Philippines. The Chinese call the jewsharp Keou Kin, ' mouth 

 harp,' and consider it very ancient, and with some reason, for it is 

 found among the Ainos, the original inhabitants of Japan, of whom a 

 few survive in the northern islands. 



As constructed by orientals who have not been influenced by contact 

 with Europeans and Americans, their jewsharps are made of narrow 

 pieces of bamboo from five to nine inches in length, and split so as to 

 form a longitudinal section in which the jaws and tongue are cut some- 

 what like a three-pronged fork. A portion of the bamboo, of full size, 

 is sometimes left attached to the split section to serve as a handle, and 

 this measures in addition five to seven inches in length. 



Often the construction is peculiar in that the jaws of the instru- 

 ment are made to vibrate instead of the tongue, in which case the 

 tongue occupies an inverse position. In jew r sharps made by the Ainos 

 the vibration of the tongue is effected by a bit of bamboo fiber fastened 

 to a minute orifice at its base. These wooden jewsharps have little 

 power, and the modern Chinese, imitating Europeans, make them of 

 iron with a projecting handle, which is virtually a prolongation of 

 the tongue beyond the point where it is riveted to the jaws. 



Several native tribes in the Philippines make jewsharps — the Moros, 

 on northern Mindanao, the inhabitants of the Sooloo archipelago and 

 the Negritos. In Burmah and Thibet, where the common name is 

 Murchang (or simply Chang), they are not made by the Thibetans 

 themselves, but by the Lissus and by tribes in the southeastern districts, 

 where nearly all women carry jewsharps in ornamental cases suspended 



VOL. LXVIII. — 16. 



