Tonkori

The tonkori (トンコリ) is a plucked string instrument played by the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, northern Japan and Sakhalin.

[citation needed] By the 1970s the instrument was practically extinct, but is experiencing a revival along with the increased interest in Ainu heritage.

[1][2] The instrument is typically constructed of a single piece of Jezo spruce approximately a metre long.

[1][14] The late-1800s explorer A. H. Savage Landor documented the tonkori, stating that it was referred to only as mukko ("musical instrument").

[15] Linguist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney noted that /tonkori/ was sometimes pronounced with either a voiced or voiceless stop on the initial sound: [donkori] or [tonkori].