Jingling Johnnie

Jingling Johnnie [Johnnie, corr. of *chaghāna], *percussion stick surmounted by a crescent and an ornament shaped like a Chin. hat, from which bells and jingles and usually 2 horsehair tails—1 red and 1 white—are suspended, adopted by European military bands from the Turks, hence also known as Turkish crescent. Europe knew of it by the 16th c.; a Pressburg inventory of 1527 lists a “Turkish bush of horsehair on a chime …” Brit. military bands adopted it in the late 18th c., Ger. ones in the…