Matouqin is the Chinese name for the bowed-string musical instrument of Mongolian origin known in the Mongolian language as a morin khuur. Both names mean "horse-head fiddle." Its sound is poetically described as expansive and unrestrained, like a wild horse neighing, or like a breeze in the grasslands.
The instrument consists of a wooden-framed sound box to which two strings are attached. Traditionally, the frame would be covered with camel, goat, or sheep skin, in which case a small opening would be left in back, but in modern times, an all-wood sound box like European stringed instruments use, including the carved "f-holes," are more common. The strings are made from hairs from horses' tails, and run over a wooden bridge on the body up a long neck to the two tuning pegs in the scroll, which is always carved into the form of a horse's head. The "male" string has 130 hairs from a stallion's tail, while the "female" string as 105 hairs from a mare's tail. Traditionally, the strings are tuned a fifth apart, though in modern music they are more often tuned a fourth apart. The bow is loosely strung with horse hair which is tightened by the grip of the right hand, allowing very fine control of the instrument's timbre.
A matouqin is held nearly upright with the sound box in the musician's lap. The strings are stopped either by pinching them in the joints of the index and middle fingers, or by pinching them between the nail of the little finger and the pad of the ring finger.
A Mongolian legend credits the invention of the matouqin to a boy named Sükhe. After a wicked lord slew the boy's prized white horse, the horse's spirit came to Sükhe in a dream and instructed him to make an instrument from the horse's body, so the two could still be together and neither would be lonely. So the first matouqin was assembled, with horse bones as its neck, horsehair strings, horse skin covering its wooden soundbox, and its scroll carved into the shape of a horse head.
In reality, the matouqin evolved from the xiqin, an ancient musical instrument of northeast China. Marco Polo obtained a matouqin while visiting Yuanshangdu (the Upper Capital of the Yuan Dynasty) in 1275 and took it back to Europe.
''Note that numerous images of this instrument can be found using Google but all are copyright-reserved.
