An Abeng is an animal horn or musical instrument in the language of the
Akan people
The Akan () people live primarily in present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa. The Akan language (also known as ''Twi/Fante'') are a group of dialects within the Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano subfamily of the Niger–Congo ...
. The word ''abeng'' is from the
Twi language
Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...
in modern-day
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, it is a commonly used word in the Caribbean, especially
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, and the instrument is associated with the
Maroon people
Maroons are descendants of African diaspora in the Americas, Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples, eventually ethnogenesi ...
.
The Maroons of Jamaica used the horn to communicate over great distances in ways that couldn't be understood by people outside the community.
Today the abeng is made from
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...
horn and is still used in Maroon communities on ceremonial occasions or to announce important news.
See also
*
Sneng
The sneng or snaeng ( km, ស្នែង, "horn") is an aerophone made from an ox horn or water buffalo horn. It is loud enough to call across a distance and has been used in rural environments to signal mealtimes, give warning, call for help ...
a similar side-blown horn in Cambodia
References
External links
Article with details on Abeng
Animal products
Natural horns and trumpets
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