The smaller string instrument shown is a bow lute of the Kpelle tribe. A piassava fiber string is stretched from the tip of the bow to its gourd resonator covered with animal skin. The larger instrument is a one-stringed fiddled played by Mandingo musicians. Its gourd resonator is covered with snakeskin. Both of these…are played with a bow made with horsehair.
Medium
11.5 and 16.5 in/29 and 41 cm long
Subject
Mandingo
Provenance
Unknown
Spatial Coverage
Liberia
Medium
Gourd, leather, fibers
Is Referenced By
William Siegmann, Rock of the Ancestors (Suacoco: Cuttington University College, 1977), 94.
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