Spike fiddle; riti

Riti, spike fiddle. Gourd body with poker-work decoration and a square sound hole cut out on the player's left-hand side. The lizard-skin soundtable is nailed to the body with a double row of round-headed tacks. A wooden stick pierces the skin horizontally so that it may withstand the pressure of the string on the dowel bridge. The wooden neck bisects the resonator, emerging as a spike at the base. The single bowed white horsehair string is tied at each end to a vegetable fibre string. At the proximal end the string is wound round the top of the neck, and at the distal end it passes through the the spike. With outcurved wooden bow (M5a-1986) with cloth-covered handle.