The Kafir harp is a traditional Arched harp (with a bow-shaped body formed from a tree branch with four to five string depending on size) used by the Kafirs in the Nuristan province of Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. It is played during social gatherings, and to accompany epic storytelling or songs of heroic tales.

Similar harps used to be widespread in ancient times throughout Central Asia and India, and this harp possibly entered Afghanistan during the spread of Buddhism across the region but today the waji is not used in any other part of Afghanistan. It has been compared to the ennanga

Ennanga

African harps, particularly arched or "bow" harps, are found in several Sub-Saharan African music traditions, particularly in the north-east. Used from early times in Africa, they resemble the form of harps in ancient Egypt with a vaulted body of wood, parchment faced, and a neck, perpendicular to...

 of Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

 and harp designs used in Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

 and Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 as far back as 3000 BCE.

Construction and Design

The Kafir harp is constructed of two main components, the soundbox and the stringholder. The Soundbox is made from a hollowed piece of wood with a think piece of animal skin stretched over it . The stringholder is a curved branch that sits on top of the soundbox, and up to five strings are pulled through holes created along the side of the branch. On one side of the branch, the strings are held in place with non-tuning knobs, on the other side the strings dangle off the instrument like tassels. One harp collected in an anthropological expedition in the 1950s had four strings that corresponded to the central Techrachord of the Dorian

Dorian

The Dorians were one of the four major ethnē into which the Ancient Greeks, or Hellenes, of the Classical period considered themselves divided. Ethnos has the sense of ethnic group. Herodotus uses the word with regard to them...

 Mode.

Playing Technique

When one plays the Kafir harp they have to balance the sound box on the left arm, leaving the strings to face up, rather than away from the musician. It is played with a plectrum

Plectrum

A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...

in the right hand while using the left hand to mute certain strings. While the reasons for this may be cultural there are functional reasons why it would be helpful to have the left hand near the strings that it is responsible for muting. Stylistically, a piece of music featuring the kafir harp may begin with an ostinato figure on the harp, underneath a soloist (who may or may not be the kafir player himself) and/or by syncopated hand-clapping.

Cultural Importance

The Nuristanis, who claim a lineage back to Alexander the Great’s Macedonian armies and who converted to Islam in the late 19th century, inhabit a remote mountain area in the north-east. The instruments played in Nuristan tend to be unique to the region, and there are no similar types of zithers or harps like the kafir harp to be found in other parts of Afghanistan. This harp is played predominantly by men in the region.

Images (external links)

• Image at Iconea Database of Middle and Near Eastern Archeomusicology