A tumran or tomra is the oldest lamellophone-type musical instrument of the Khanty people. A tumran is usually made from the rib of a deer or a tree. A tumran made of a deer rib is called a suup-tumran.
This musical instrument is a tapered plate made of bone or wood. It has a reed cut out at the middle with a tendon thread attached at the base, which is used to pull the reed.
Traditionally, tumrans were made and played by women. The art of making and playing such an instrument is akin to shamanism — there are cases where upon teaching an apprentice, the woman would give up playing the tumran, as if her gift was literally transferred to her apprentice.
Creating such an instrument requires exquisite workmanship, an excellent eye and accuracy, as any excessive pressure or impact could break the reed. Bone is a very fragile material, so before attempting to do anything with it, it must first be boiled in water for some time. Later, before playing the instrument, the musician and maker (as a rule, they are the same person) first puts the instrument in boiling water for a few minutes.
The instrument resembles a mouth harp, but its fundamental difference from the mouth harp is that the sound is extracted by pulling the tendon thread, thus making the reed vibrate. Playing the tumran is rather challenging, as to create a melody one has to not only make the reed vibrate in a certain way, but also breathe a certain way.
The sound the tumran produces is rather soft, it can imitate animal calls or the trampling of hooves. The instrument has a majestic and fascinating sound, and it is no wonder the Khanty and Mansi believe that it drives away evil spirits and heals the sick.
In the early 20th century the Finnish ethnographer Uuno Sirelius visited a Khanty settlement and became the first to describe this Khanty mouth harp. He mentions it under the name “tomraa”.
Tomra is an instrument for playing in solitude. It is played for pleasure, for women and children. Perhaps at some point, playing the tomra was a part of wedding etiquette, as playing music can be seen as a form of fortune-telling, and the mysterious intonations created when pronouncing words through a harp were a part of the female custom of “avoiding” men.
