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
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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!