Gusle: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This gusle was made by an unknown maker in Montenegro, Yugoslavia, probably 19th century. It has a table of hide stretched over the “spoon” body and fastened with 28 hardwood pins, body, neck and head carved of a single piece of beechwood, one beechwood tuning peg. The instrument is not varnished.

A gusle is a fiddle fashioned from one piece of wood forming a spoon-shaped body with an elongated narrow neck terminating in a carving of a symbolic figure or animal. It is usually made of maple with a stretched skin forming the table. It is typically a single-string instrument, but occasionally a gusle may be made with two strings.

The gusle is commonly used to accompany inspirational ballads. Essentially a poetic storyteller of events, each performer ornaments the music and stylizes the narration of the basic story, often recounting battles or deeds of war heroes. Before each performance the player positions the bridge on the animal hide table diagonally to the string and tunes the instrument to his own voice . The geometric pattern cut into the neck and the pyramid-shaped finial of the carved figure on this instrument are features common to gusles of the mountainous Sandzak region of Montenegro, the southwestern republic of the former Yugoslavia.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 19th century
• Object Name: gusle
• Physical Description: hardwood (overall material)
• Physical Description: beech (overall material)
• Physical Description: animal skin (overall material)
• Measurements: gusle: 32 1/4 in x 8 15/16 in x 6 1/8 in; 81.915 cm x 22.70125 cm x 15.5575 cm
• Measurements: bridge: 1/2 in x 2 5/8 in x 1 3/8 in; 1.27 cm x 6.6675 cm x 3.4925 cm
• place made: Serbia and Montenegro
• ID Number: MI.094663
• catalog number: 094663
• accession number: 22687
• Credit Line: Gift of John A. Kasson
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.