The Suka was a unique fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

 that was played vertically, on the knee or hanging from a strap, and the strings were stopped at the side with the fingernails; similar to the Gadulka

Gadulka

The gadulka is a traditional Bulgarian bowed string instrument. Alternate spellings are "gudulka" and "g'dulka". Its name comes from a root meaning "to make noise, hum or buzz"...

. The body of the instrument was very similar to the modern violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, but the neck was very wide, and the pegbox

Pegbox

A pegbox is the part of certain stringed musical instruments that houses the tuning pegs....

 was crude. This was thought to be the "missing link" between the upside-down or "knee chordophone

Chordophone

A chordophone is any musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification....

" instruments, and the modern violin. It died out, and was known only from drawings of a single specimen displayed at an exhibition in 1888.