Ligombo

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Ligombo is a rare, six-string bowl zither or trog zither of the Hehe in the Iringa region in central Tanzania and the Sangu in the Mbeya region in the west of the country, which a singer uses to accompany songs. The string carrier of this type of instrument, which only occurs in the East African inter-seas region, consists of a narrow board with a bowl-shaped top, which is placed on a calabash at one end and tied with a string to amplify the sound .

distribution

Board zither of the Makere, a language group of the Mangbetu in the north of the Congo, with heterochord (made of foreign material) strings. Further development of the raft zithers with idiochord strings. Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

The closely related basic forms of the simplest stringed instruments are musical bows with a flexible and more or less curved string carrier, between the ends of which a string is stretched, and rod zithers (or musical sticks) with a straight string carrier, over which one or more strings are usually guided in parallel. Characteristic of East Africa, the mono- or multi-stringed Platt rod Zither is zeze , upended in which a melody string on the narrow side of one flat extending strings carrier. A calabash is attached to the underside of the stick to enhance the sound. The second form of a music stick are round stick zithers , which are used for Uganda, the east of the Congo (single-stringed kingwandikila from a palm leaf stem of the Bembe) and West Africa. A special form of the stick zither is the multi-string notched zither mvet that occurs in Cameroon . The oldest photo of such a multi-stringed zither was taken in 1911 by the expedition leader Armand Huterau (1875–1914) in the Uele region in the north of the former colonial area of ​​the Belgian Congo .

The multi-string all-tube zithers made from a bamboo tube are restricted to Madagascar and are known there under the name valiha . In their original form, they have idiochorde, i.e. strings cut out of the outer layer of the bamboo tube, corresponding to the East African raft zithers. These consist of several thin plant stems connected in parallel, each of which has a string detached between two ovaries. This includes the litungu (name of the same name as the vellum litungu ) of the Bagisu in eastern Uganda . They are only outwardly similar to the raft rattles ( kayamba ).

With the African board zithers, the strings are stretched parallel over a long rectangular wooden board. The strings are kept at a distance by crossbars pushed under on both sides as a saddle . In its main area of ​​distribution, East Africa and Central Africa, there are mainly instruments with five, seven and thirteen strings. The bangwe usually played in Malawi with seven strings is put with one end into a calabash half-shell or an open metal canister to reinforce the resonance. Similarly, in a horizontal position above the ground with the far end in a calabash half-shell, the Makonde mbangwe is played in northern Mozambique. The board zither kipango in southwestern Tanzania has six strings. A calabash is attached to one end. In a modern playing position, the kipango is held at an angle in front of the upper body like a guitar.

Type E six-string zither tied to a calabash. Shi language group around Bukavu in eastern Congo. Royal Museum for Central Africa

The shell zithers are a type of instrument closely related to the board zithers, which is only widespread in East Africa and with a special variant in southern Africa . The rectangular or long oval board is shaped into a flat shell over which the strings are stretched lengthways, so that no crossbars are required under the strings for the East African types. The shell also has a resonance-enhancing effect, especially if it is deeply hollowed out. In East Africa shell zithers or trough zithers occur all over Tanzania and in the inter- lake area (between Lake Victoria , Lake Kivu and Lake Tanganyika ), which includes Uganda, Rwanda , Burundi , western Tanzania and eastern Congo. The inanga , also enanga or nnanga , which is widespread between Burundi, Rwanda and the island of Ukerewe on the south coast of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, contains the Bantu- speaking word stem -nanga , which probably originally meant “string instrument” in general and also from those who speak a Nilotic language Acholi in northern Uganda was adopted as the name for their trog zither. The trog zither itself should have been obtained by the Acholi from the southern Ugandan Bantu groups through the mediation of the Kingdom of Bunyoro . The root word -nanga is also used in the name of the bow harps ennanga of the Baganda and kinanga of the Bakonjo in southern Uganda. The spread of words, in connection with oral tradition, makes it probable that at least the shell zithers in the inter-lake area have a common origin.

Ulrich Wegner (1984) divides the East African shell zithers into five groups according to their shape. The inanga of the intermediate lake area with a wide, flat bowl shape and low edges belongs to type A. In this case, a single string of strings is run continuously around notches on the rounded narrow sides. The ligombo of type B is characterized by a very narrow, flat shape that tapers towards the middle of the sides. Your string is fed through holes on the narrow sides. In addition to the Hehe, this type occurs among the Wakinga in the Njombe region in southern Tanzania, the Sangu in the Mbeya region in the southwest, the Bena in the Iringa region and the Kaguru in the eastern center of the country. A shorter version of the ligombo with seven strings among the Safwa who live in the Sangu area in the Mbeya region is called sumbi . Type C differs from the otherwise similar type B in that it has a deeper semi-tubular shape and straight longitudinal walls. It occurs north of the distribution area of ​​type B especially with the Gogo in the central Tanzanian region Dodoma , with the Turu in the Singida region , with the Sandawe in the Kondoa district and the Isanzu in the Iramba district (Singida region). Type D is again long and narrow, but has a flat bottom and straight side walls at right angles to it. Its distribution area is along the east coast with the Zaramo and Kwere in the Pwani region and further south with the Makonde . Among the Makonde and Nguru (Ngulu) speakers in eastern central Tanzania, the type E with a wide rectangular bowl shape and a flat bottom was also observed.

The strings of all East African shell zithers are plucked with the fingers. Another group of shell zithers, or semi-tubular zithers, occurs in southern Africa with one string bowed with a short bow. Your ursprünglichster and obsolete today representatives is probably as a further development of a mouth bow emerged tshidzholo of Venda in South Africa. The string tone of the tshidzholo stretched over a halved branch carved in the shape of a groove is amplified with the mouth and changed in sound. The single-stringed shell zither segankuru was created from it , with a tin box attached to the upper end of the string support to reinforce the resonance. The segankuru occurs in Botswana and under various names in neighboring countries.

Design

Six-string bowl zither of type B from the Nyamwezi in Central Tanzania. Corresponds to the ligombo . Strings and sound boxes are missing. Ethnological Museum , Berlin.

The ligombo of the Hehe (Wahehe) and Sanga (Wasanga) consists of an approximately one meter long, very slender wooden string carrier, which is thin-walled to form a flat groove. The ends of the gutter are slightly wider than the middle area because they are used to attach the six parallel strings. At one end, which ends butt, the string carrier is placed across the circular opening 10 centimeters in diameter of a round, cushion-shaped calabash, the diameter of which is approximately 30 centimeters, to reinforce the resonance. The string support is detachably fixed with a looped cord that is knotted on the bottom of the calabash.

The string vibrations are transmitted to the calabash like a calabash musical bow without string division through direct contact with the string holder. In addition to the stick zithers mentioned, some lamellophones are also placed on or in the opening of calabashes to amplify the resonance (cf. mbila ). The other end of the string support is extended by a few centimeters using a thin round piece of wood. From the Sukuma area on the south bank of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, clove-lobes are known in which such a stalk extension ends in a fully sculpted female figure. This decorative figure is clothed in brightly colored fabrics and hung with jewelry and was used to draw the audience's attention to the musicians at Sukuma music competitions. A ligombo der Hehe acquired by Friedrich Fülleborn in 1898 , which is in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, has such a figure on the end of the handle. The specimen is 106 centimeters long, the calabash diameter is 36 centimeters.

The strings are fed through the holes drilled in a row on the thickened faces of the shell. As with board zithers and other shell zithers, these are not strings that are individually fixed at the ends, but rather a continuous string of strings. This is pulled through all the holes from one side to the other. The string cord, which is fixed at one end with a cross piece, is tied to the stem extension at the other end. The different tension of the individual strings is maintained thanks to the frictional resistance on the narrow loops leading through two holes, even if the strings are plucked strongly. They traditionally consist of intestines or animal tendons.

Style of play

The strings are tuned low and produce a muffled sound. The ligombo is commonly used to accompany singing. With the Sangu, the traditional music follows a hexatonic or heptatonic tone system and the songs are sung in several voices with parallel thirds and fourths . In their music, the Sangu have less in common with neighboring ethnic groups and more with ranching communities in Angola and Zambia .

The settlement area of ​​the Sangu in the 19th century was on a main route of the East African caravan trade from Bagamoyo to Tabora , which is why they came into contact with Muslim Swahili traders from the coast before 1830 and therefore adopted Islam relatively early. In the past , the ligomba accompanied historical heroic songs and prize songs to the heads. The chief had to give permission to perform these songs. According to the Sangu, the ligomba is said to have originally been their own musical instrument and the Hehe neighboring to the east would have taken it over from them. This statement cannot be further verified and should be taken with caution, because in the 19th century the Sanga received guns through contact with Swahili and Arabs, with which they achieved regional supremacy and fought with the hostile but linguistically related Hehe. The ligombo probably came from the Hehe to the Bena in the Iringa region in the 19th century, where it was given the name libangobango .

The best-known ligombo sanga player in the 1940s and 1950s was Pancras Mkwana, the uncle of the then Sanga leader, of whom Hugh Tracey recorded in 1950. One of the songs was first released on shellac record .

In 1976 Gerhard Kubik recorded the ligombo game by Hehe musician Msigibuluma, who was about 72 years old at the time. With the Hehe it was customary for a young music student to sit by his side and hit the basic beat with his hands on the sound box of the instrument while the master played. The ligombo music is otherwise little documented and largely disappeared.

literature

  • Gerhard Kubik : Ligombo . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 3, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, pp. 285f
  • Gerhard Kubik: East Africa. Music history in pictures . Volume 1: Musikethnologie, Delivery 10. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1982, pp. 144f
  • Ulrich Wegner: African string instruments. (Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin. New series 41. Department of Ethnic Music V) Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1984

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LP: An Anthology Of African Life. Volume 1: Congo-Gabon. AST 6001, published 1972. Herbert Pepper: Recordings and text booklet
  2. ↑ Harp Zither. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren
  3. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, p. 45
  4. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, p. 58
  5. ↑ Gerhard Kubik, 1982, pp. 27f
  6. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, pp. 65f
  7. ^ Gerhard Kubik: Munich City Museum. Post-documentation and catalog project for African musical instruments. 2011, p. 37
  8. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, pp. 67-69
  9. ↑ Gerhard Kubik, 2014, p. 285
  10. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, p. 223 (catalog number 129)
  11. ↑ Ulrich Wegner, 1984, p. 69
  12. ^ Hugh Tracey: Recording Tour, May to November 1950 East Africa . In: Newsletter (African Music Society) , Vol. 1, No. 4, June 1951, pp. 38–51, here p. 39
  13. ↑ Sengere . ILAM Digital Sound Archive
  14. ^ Gerhard Kubik, 1982, p. 144
  15. ↑ Janet Topp: Rare Tanzanian music recordings preserved. British Library Music Blog, July 13, 2012