Stringed Instrument (Rabab?)

On 02.08.2007 a cloth bag with an inscription has been found "to 18396" and packed in the box. (Kaebelmann) RJM 18396.

Annotation (8/19/21)
According to Hans Brandeis, a recognized scholar of Philippine boat lutes, this musical instrucment is most likely an instrument called a RABAB (with variant names ROOBAB or RUBAB) by Farmer in 10th-century Arabic texts in contexts that indicate it was a bowed instrument (Farmer 1978-1:101-3). The rabab is one of the national instruments of Afghanistan now. Other references to the RABAB may be found in Die Musikinstrumente Indiens Und Indonesiens by Curt Sachs (p. 121).

According to Miner, Allyn, in the book Sitar and sarod in the 18th and 19th centuries published in 1997, this type of instrument and its variants did spread to South and Southeast Asia. (p. 61). To Brandeis however, this short-necked bowl lute string instrument was most likely not made in the Philippines, and perhaps was brought over to Mindanao by a visitor, traveler or merchant and collected from the area in 1906.

More studies of this rather unusual specimen would be needed to determine if this was an import from parts of Central Asia or is a localised variant of the Rabab. Further studies of the okir elements in this item and the inscriptions found in the small leather bag that accompanies the instrument may contribute to a better understanding of this particular item.

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Identifier

RJM-18396

Origin

Moro Mindanao

Provenance

Lot Number 190618. Georg Küppers-Loosen. Georg Küppers-Loosen (1860-1910) was a Cologne entrepreneur and traveller. He was a board member of the Cologne Department of the German Colonial Society, the Cologne Art Museum Society and the Musical Society. In 1887 he took over the flourishing business founded by his father in 1856, providing him with financial means. With his patronage, he supported various Cologne cultural institutions. He was particularly attached to the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum. Küppers-Loosen was co-founder and for many years vice-chairman of the 'Society of Ethnology for the Promotion of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum of the City of Cologne' and donated an extensive collection of ethnographica and photographs to the museum. Although he was a prominent member of Cologne's society at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, we do not know much about him and his collecting activities. For now RJM believes that he did actually travel to the Philippines himself from where he also brought some items. There is no further information on his travels, routes or ways of collecting so far. (Added by Sonja Mohr , RJM Curator for Insular South East Asia 2021)

Acquisition Date

1906

Display status

Not on display

Official Website

https://www.museenkoeln.de/rautenstrauch-joest-museum/collection_en

Collection

Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum

Source

Translated from German by Google Translate and MPMC editors with the help of RJM curators. Record accessed August 2021.

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“Stringed Instrument (Rabab?),” Mapping Philippine Material Culture, accessed April 27, 2024, https://philippinestudies.uk/mapping/items/show/7405.

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