From the Highlands to the Steppes: The Long Journey of the Bagpipe
On 28 July 2025, as the skirl of bagpipes echoed across the windswept greens of President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort, two world leaders met under the Scottish flag. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump gathered for “wide-ranging talks” on trade and global conflicts — yet it was the sound of a Scottish pipe band that first captured attention. For President Trump, whose mother was born in the Outer Hebrides, the music carried a personal resonance. The bagpipe, long a symbol of Scotland’s spirit, continues to speak across generations and continents — from clan gatherings and state ceremonies to moments of diplomacy. Its sound is unmistakably Scottish: bold, mournful, and proud. Yet across the ancient world, far beyond the Highlands, other peoples once drew the same haunting tones from leather and reed — among them the nomads of what is now Kazakhstan. Echoes from the East Centuries before the first Highland marches, nomadic Turkic peoples were playing an instrument remarkably similar in design — the zhelbuaz. Crafted from goat or sheepskin and fitted with two or more reed pipes, it produced the same soulful harmony that defines the modern bagpipe. When filled with air and played from horseback or during ceremonies, it created a sound that was at once haunting and powerful, much like the music that still moves crowds today. As the people of the Central Asian steppes were largely nomadic for most of their history, there is scant hard evidence. However, early scholars described the zhelbuaz (or mes-syrnai) as an ancient wind instrument made from a single piece of animal skin or stomach. Al-Farabi wrote of a “wineskin flute” among the Turkic tribes, and the Chinese traveler Wen Sun, visiting the Orkhon region in the 7th century, reportedly recorded a Turk playing a "leather instrument with two pipes, whose sound deepens the sadness of the mourners.” The Journey Westward Over centuries, the idea of the air-filled reed instrument migrated westward — first through trade and migration, and then through cultural contact. Variants appeared in Eastern Europe: the duda in Poland, the tulum in Azerbaijan, and the musette in France. Linguists note that modern terms such as duu (meaning “song” in Mongolian) and düdük (meaning “whistle” in Turkish) suggest a shared onomatopoetic pattern for wind instruments and vocal sound across Eurasia, hinting at, though not proving, a linguistic thread connecting these distant traditions. But it was in Scotland that the instrument found its fullest voice. There, in the hands of Highland clans, it became more than music — it became identity. The Great Highland Bagpipe emerged as a call to arms, a hymn of remembrance, and a symbol of a people’s endurance. Its power lies not just in its sound, but in what it represents: honor, courage, and belonging. [caption id="attachment_38114" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Image: Ykhlas Museum of Folk Musical Instruments[/caption] The Zhelbuaz Remembered In Kazakhstan, the zhelbuaz gradually disappeared from everyday life, its haunting voice surviving only in oral memory and museum collections. Today, musician Abzal...
