Tautirut: Iceland musical instrument

The tautirut is a bowed zither that is from the Inuit culture of Canada.

The tautirut together with the Apache fiddle are among the few First Nations chordophones that may probably be pre-Columbian in origin. An ethnomusicologist known as Anthony Baines and others has noted the resemblance of this musical instrument and the Icelandic fidla and the Shetland gue.

source of picture: native-drums.ca

Peter Cooke believed that the musical instrument limited distribution around the Hudson Bay area shows that it was introduced to the Inuit by Hudson’s Bay company sailors from the Orkney and the Shetland Islands.