Gora (string instrument)

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End with a quill pen at a lesiba

Gora , also goura, gom-gom , is a musical bow played by the Khoisan in South Africa , the string of which is neither plucked, bowed nor struck, but blown with the mouth. The sound generation by wind is similar to that of an Aeolian harp . A structurally identical musical bow is called lesiba by the Sesotho speakers .

The gora was first described by the German ethnologist Peter Kolb around 1700 . It consists of an approximately straight stick, the shape and length of which corresponds roughly to the arch of the mouth umqangala , and a string that has been replaced on one side of the stick by a short, flattened piece of ostrich quill . This short piece of flat string is placed between the slightly opened lips and set in vibration by the forced inhaled and exhaled air. In addition, half a coconut shell can be threaded onto the round part of the string , with the help of which the pitch and timbre can be varied. The gora was played by the Khoi Khoi and the San and is now the national musical instrument of Lesotho .

The Batswana took over the gora from the Khoisan and gave it the name lesiba , which means “feather” in their language, Setswana . In the southern Bechuanaland (today Kgatleng District in Botswana) Percival Kirby (1934) noted the name kwadi .

literature

  • Henry Balfour: The Goura, a Stringed-Wind Musical Instrument of the Bushmen and Hottentots. In: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 32, January-June 1902, pp. 156-176
  • Percival R. Kirby : The Gora and its Bantu Sucessors: A Study in South African Native Music. Bantu Studies , Vol. 5 (1), 1931, pp. 89-109, doi : 10.1080 / 02561751.1931.9676255
  • Percival R. Kirby: The Mystery of the Grand Gom-Gom. In: South African Journal of Science, Vol. 28, November 1931, pp. 521-525
  • Percival R. Kirby: The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa. (1934) 2nd edition: Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1965, Chapter 8: The 'Gora', a Stringed-Wind Instrument, pp. 171-192
  • Erica MH Mugglestone: The Gora and the 'Grand' Gom-Gom. In: African Music, Vol. 6 (2), 1982, pp. 94-115

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Percival R. Kirby, 1965, p. 181