Morin Huur (Batohkin, Batouqin, Matouqin)

As the characters (in Japanese Kanji) suggest there is a sculpture of a horse head on top of the instrument.
My instrument also has a dragon’s face underneath the horse.
In old days, I heard that it was a sculpture of the king of tribe.
The instrument has a long neck with 2 strings. And the string is made of thin yarn bundled together.
The thicker string (the outer string) has 120 strands and the thinner string (the inner string) has about 80 strands, all bundled.

A long time, ago, the instrument makers used horse tail. Now it’s mainly nylon. (That is because horse tail reacts to the heat from lighting and humidity.)
The body is made of wood. The pine family and paulownia family are used, mainly.
Cow or sheep skin used to be used in the back of the body, stretched.
The bow originally had a shape of an archery bow but now it is like violin and cello bows.

Playing Methods

First shut the body part between your knees. The instrument is held slightly tothe left, at an oblique angle.
Hold the bow in your right hand. You hold the bow differently from the way you hold a violin or cello bow. In a way, your position resembles holding chopsticks. The 5th and 4th fingers are hitched to the bow – a unique characteristics is that you play by strongly pushing the hair of the bow.
The 2nd and 3rd fingers are used to play at the side of the strings from the root of the nail.
When the 5th finger is pushing inside the inner string, it goes under the outer string.
In flageolet, the 1st finger touches the inner string to make sounds.