North and Central India

Indian

Wood, brass
Length: 7.5 in, Width: 1.5 in
Early 20th century
Idiophones – Struck Idiophones – Clappers

The kartal (khartal) in South Asia denotes primarily, a pair of wooden clappers.  In the India subcontinent, kartal denotes wooden bats/clappers sometimes with or without small metal jingles mounted by metal pins in them, but in east India it denotes small cymbals. In north and central areas of India the wooden pairs are played in each hand and provide the rhyt­hmic sup­port to devotional songs such as bhajans, kirtan, folk and other light music. The name is derived from the Hindi words kara meaning ‘hand’ and tala meaning ‘clap.’  

This set of wooden kartal consists of a finely crafted pair of wooden clapper rattles.  Each with two sets of jingles (brass discs), on both ends of each clapper.  They are designed as fish/snake heads with the metal discs in their mouth. On the outer side a brass ring is attached on each clapper, one for the thumb and the other for a finger, by which the two clappers are held.

Resource: “Kartal,” Alastair Dick, “The Groves Dictionary of Musical Instruments,” 2^nd ed., Vol 3, Lawrence Libin, Editor in Chief.  Oxford University Press.