The 1550 publication Cosmographia by the scientist Sebastian Münster of Basel shows images of a witch and devils dancing accompanied by a bagpiper, a lutanist, and a lyre player.
And when they, having learned nothing, left the church, then began again drinking, dancing, songs and jumping, one could pass out of the great noise, women singing, and the sound from many dūdas.
The best-known of these was the bagpiper Pēteris Šeflers (1861-1945), he made a record in 1930s and can also be seen playing in the first Latvian sound film Dzimtene sauc (The Motherland Calls).
A dūdas is made of a leather bag, and no less than three pipes of different size: the iemutnis ("nipple"), stabule (chanter) and bāga or burdons ("drone").
The bag is traditionally made from the whole skin of a sheep, goat, dog or calf or (in more modern versions) is sewn from hide.
It is inserted through the right front leg or the hole in the upper part of the bag and the skin is sealed by tying it tightly with thin rope.
Traditionally Latvian dūdas (bagpipes) are tuned in G or D. Finally, the bāga or burdons (drone pipe) was made out of large maple stick, also with a spiedze or mēlīte, but without any holes.