Bag - mih
Kolan, island Pag, 1982
wood (elder), sheep leather
cutting, drilling, cleaning, stripping, tanning
length of the chanter = 17,2 cm
length of the stock = 6,5 cm
length of the blowpipe = 9,3 cm
distance from the top of the chanter to the first finger-hole = 4,2 cm
Et 27933
The Collection of Musical Instruments
The bag consists of sheep skin. One end of the skin is tied with a rope and the double flute is attached to the other part. A blowpipe is attached onto the front leg hole . The blowpipe is crafted of elder wood. The stock is shaped as a hollow truncated cone. A chanter with holes arranged 5:1 is inserted into the stock. Inside the stock there are two reeds with two tongues. There is a human shape carved in low relief on the front side (head, arms, chest). The stock and the blowpipe are filled with wax at the joint. The wood is lacquered transparently.
The instrument was crafted by an instrument maker - he cleaned and tanned the skin, drilled the holes on the chanter, bored the holes, carved the ornaments and lacquered the instrument.
After conducting field research on the island of Pag, Božidar Širola writes in 1937: “In Novalja the instrument is played at dances during the carnival (mesopust) and at weddings (na pirih). The mješnice from Novalja on the island of Pag, and the mješnice from the city of Pag are both played in the same way - the left hand is used to cover holes on the upper section and the right hand is used to cover holes on the bottom section. Nowadays the mješnice are no longer played on Pag. It has been about forty years since the mješnice disappeared (with the founding of the Hrvatska čitaonica (the Croatian Library) and a tambura choir within it)”.
