One of my favorite Middle East culture bloggers, Michael Collins Dunn of the Middle East institute, recently posted about Tunisian bagpipes. This followed a Tunisia Live story on the instrument, called a mezoued in Tunisian. I thought I would follow suit as part of my picture of the day series. This photo comes from August 1999 when I traveled to Tunisia’s west for the first time. Taking the train from Tunis to Khalaat Khasba on a hot summer day, I met a family traveling home. Luckily, one of the family members played the mezoued, making for a memorable travel experience, and an inspiring train ride.
Tunisian bagpipes aboard the SNCFT from Tunis to Kalaat Khasba
Do you have any information on how these are made, or what they are made out of? Just curious. I didn’t see it in any of the linking articles.
It’s a good question – I don’t know if it is the same for all Mezoued, but the one pictured above is a sheep hide – the protrusions are the animals legs. They’re quite remarkable.
Ahhh. Yes. Well I was going to say this to me looked very reminiscent of my last Eid and the process to remove the skin from the muscle =)
No, it is a goat skin; you still could see the hair attached; I don’t know if sheep skin would work, but I have never seen it used. The hide has to be removed whole, as one takes a sweater off, so it is different from the regular way of skinning where the skin is cut along the midline, as in Eid.
Thanks for the clarification, Khaled. Cheers!