////That's a good point about using something natural, such as a goard for a resonance chamber. It also puts me in mind of the churango (sp), the instrument of the Andes which used to be made from the shell of an armadillo////

I first saw that instrument back in the 70s. They probably use synthetic materials to make them now or PETA would have a fit.

But what happened along the line was that the woodworkers simply made the bow and body one piece and the instrument body was born. The bow was straightened so it could be fingered to change pitch and the fingerboard was born. Tuning pegs replaced the ferrule and so on. It gave birth to a whole new craft and industry (even at the time that C.F. Martin left Germany to emigrate to the US, craftsmen in the cabinet-makers' guild made the guitars in Europe much to the displeasure of the violin-makers' guild and Martin himself was a cabinet-maker).