1. Limba (Atonga)
2. Sansi
3. Reed (mtangala)
From Specimens in the Ethnological Museum at Cambridge
A flute (chitoliro) is made out of a piece of bamboo about a foot long, cut off immediately above and below the joints, so that it is closed at both ends, and from three to six holes bored in the side, some of which are closed with the fingers while playing. Bvalani, the boy with the coronet, used to play on this flute a pretty, though somewhat monotonous, little tune, consisting apparently of three or four notes, repeated over and over again; but neither I nor any other mzungu has yet succeeded in getting a sound out of the one in my possession. It has one hole at one end, to blow into, and three at the other.
Whistles, made out of a small goat’s or antelope’s horn, and used for calling dogs and perhaps for signalling to each other on the road, are worn round the neck by Angoni and Chipetas; and Pan-pipes are made of reeds. Trumpets are made of gourds, sometimes fixed with wax on a long reed; the same word, lipenga, is used for a horn employed in the same way, or for a European key-bugle, or (in hymns) for the Tuba mirum spargens sonum of the Last Day. Some of the people near the south end of Tanganyika have huge trumpets cut out of a large tusk of ivory, like those used on the Upper Congo and elsewhere. One such is figured in Sir H. H. Johnston’s book, p. 465.
The instrument above referred to as the ‘Kafir piano’ is, in a modified form, very popular throughout the Shiré Highlands and on the Lake, and may often be seen in the village bwalo. The Delagoa Bay timbila is portable (see the figure in M. Junod’s Chants et Contes des Baronga, p. 27), with the wooden keys fixed on a flat frame—elsewhere, the frame is curved into the arc of a circle, so that the performer can easily reach all the keys when the instrument is slung round his neck. In both cases, resonators, made of gourds, or the hard shells of the matondo fruit, are attached to the keys. I once saw a very elaborately made and beautifully finished specimen which had come either from Delagoa Bay or Inhambane, and had polished iron keys padded with leather; but this was a sophisticated timbila, scarcely the genuine article. The Nyanja form of it, variously called magologodo, mangondongondo, mangolongondo, and mangolongodingo, usually has to be played in situ, or, if removed, must be carried away in pieces. Two logs of soft wood (banana-stems are the best), perhaps a yard long, are laid on the ground a certain distance apart, and on these are arranged six, or sometimes seven, cross-bars (the Ronga ‘piano’ has ten) cut from the wood of certain trees, and carefully trimmed to shape. Sometimes they are merely laid on the logs, sometimes there are short pegs to keep them in place. The keys on the Ronga instrument are carefully tuned, and each one is cut away underneath in such a way as to make it give a different sound; but some of those I saw at Blantyre seemed to be merely rough bits of wood which fulfilled no condition beyond that of making a noise when struck. It is played by striking the keys with two sticks; the performer holds one in each hand and squats on his heels in front of it: sometimes there are two players, who face each other; the first leads, and the second is said to ‘make a harmony with the one who is playing.’
But the drum is perhaps the commonest and most characteristic instrument, and the one which has been brought to the greatest perfection. There are many different kinds, from the little kandimbe, a mere toy for children, four or five inches across, and tapped with the fingers, to the great mpanje and kunta, five feet or more in length, or the mgulugulu war-drum, which is beaten with sticks to call the people together. None of them have two heads; the body is made of a single piece of wood hollowed out, and the head of goat-skin, or perhaps oxhide; some small drums (more like tambourines) are covered with snake or lizard skin. The sound of the large ones can be heard five or six miles away. Some are beaten with sticks, some with the hand—either with the fist (as the big mpangula, which is supported on a forked piece of wood), or the open palm, or the fingers. Some of the smaller drums are held against the chest and beaten with the open hands, which gives a peculiar, soft, booming sound; one kind is held under the arm; another is laid lengthwise on the ground, and the drummer sits astride it. Still another has legs like a small round stool, and is beaten with two sticks as it stands on the ground. The mfinta drum (large, but not the largest kind) calls the people together when the mabisalila is investigating a case of witchcraft; it is also used in a dance where the performers carry hoes and strike them together. There is a wonderful variety in the notes; ‘the smaller drums are made to answer the big ones, the rapid and slower beats blending in the most perfect time.... There are skilled drummers who go to the dances like a piper at a Scotch wedding’ (Scott).
Drums are tuned when necessary by leaving them in front of a fire, or burning some grass inside them to dry the skin and draw it tighter. The skin is fastened on by small wooden pegs, and has a piece of rubber fastened to the middle of its underside.
Besides the drums, most dances require an additional sound-producing agency in the shape of rattles. These are worn on the arms and legs of the dancers, or shaken in their hands. The commonest kind are made of a hard-shelled fruit called tseche, about two inches or less in diameter; it is allowed to dry till the seeds shake about inside it, and then four or five are strung on a stick, and several of these sticks attached round the ankles of the dancers. Women never wear these maseche at their chamba dance, above referred to; but men always do at their corresponding one, called chitoto.