Rites, holidays and traditional culture of Khanty and Mansi were inextricably linked with musical culture. Songs accompanied people in all their activities. There were songs that were sung during hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. A mother sang a lullaby to her child. All dancing was performed to music. Every Bear festival was held with musical accompaniment.

The very ability to play a musical instrument was perceived by Khanty and Mansi as an ability to get in touch with spirits. People believed that this gift came directly from them. Musical instruments of northern peoples were made by hand from natural materials. They used well-dried wood, bones, veins, hair, herbs and leaves.

Plucked string musical instruments, such as sankvyltap, were widespread in this region, so was a lamellophone tumran (mouth harp). The traditional Khanty musical instrument tor-sapl-yuh was known to almost all local groups of Khanty and Mansi. Its name translates as “wooden crane neck”. Sometimes another name was used — khotol (“swan”).

This instrument had a smooth angled frame with strings of various lengths and tones stretched inside. There were usually between 5 and 13 strings. A flexible upper arch, extending usually above the strings, from the back of the bird’s head to the edge of the bottom of the instrument, served as a vibrator. A loop was tied to the arch. The thumb passed through the loop and created a vibration of sound when the string was struck.

The musical instrument in the museum’s collection has no strings and lacks an arch. It was handmade from a single piece of wood, forming a right angle. The four-sided base was made quite wide. Nine round holes were made on the protrusion in the form of a bird’s head, into which wooden sticks were inserted.

This tor-sapl-yuh was made in Tobolsk Governorate, in the north of Western Siberia, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The musical instrument is of the simplest type of harp, the origins of which are believed to go back to a hunter’s bow.