Hi, Henry! Good questions!
> > In the American civil war period , where would the HG come from ? what > model could it be ? > who would play it ? what repertoire ? If it was that popular at the > time , how come almost > nobody in the US knows what it is today ? > > Henry My hope was to find a possible Cajun connection, although there too, I haven't been able to find any hurdy gurdy use in Cajun music. Wikipedia's definition of Cajun (see Wikipedia for more): The Cajuns are an ethnic group consisting primarily of the descendants of Acadians who settled primarily in Louisiana after they were expelled from the former French colony of Acadia (now the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) in 1755 as a result of their refusal to swear allegiance to the British Crown. Links to Brittany and Hungary are probably even more tenuous. Certainly the instrument was around in the 1860s; the repertoire would have been fiddle tunes from the period, older Revolutionary War tunes, and presumably old folk tunes from Brittany and France. As to the fact that it is little known - so is the hammered dulcimer, and it was a popular instrument of the same period (known in some areas as a "lumberjack's piano" from its use in lumber camps). I suppose another place to check would be diaries and theater records in New Orleans for mention of a hurdy gurdy performance. -Gary P.
