COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Lier met acht snaren TMnr 2435-1

The ''endongo'' is a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

, considered the national instrument of the

Baganda The Ganda people, or Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are official ...

people of

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

. It is a member of a family of

lyres Yoke lutes, commonly called lyres, are a class of string instruments, subfamily of lutes, indicated with the code 321.2 in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification. Description Yoke lutes are defined as instruments with one or more strings, arrange ...

which can be found, with variations, in many areas throughout

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

. The endongo is specifically a Kiganda bowl lyre, with the face of the bowl covered with the skin of either a

monitor lizard Monitor lizards are lizards in the genus ''Varanus,'' the only extant genus in the family Varanidae. They are native to Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and one species is also found in the Americas as an invasive species. About 80 species are recogn ...

or ant lizard. The endongo is found within the interlacustrine area of Uganda, which are “the kingdom-states around the northern, western, and southern shores of

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after ...

and the area between Lake Victoria and the chain of lakes: Lake Albert,

Lake Edward Lake Edward (locally Rwitanzigye or Rweru) is one of the smaller African Great Lakes. It is located in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, w ...

Lake Kivu Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which ...

and

Lake Tanganyika Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. ...

”. The bowl lyre present in Uganda is played by two particular tribes, the

Basoga The Soga (or Basoga) are a Bantu ethnic group native to the kingdom of Busoga in eastern Uganda. History Early contact with European explorers Busoga's written history began in 1862. On 28 July Royal Geographical Society explorer John Hanni ...

, who name the instrument ''entongoli'', and the

, who call it the ''endongo''. The bowl lyre can be heard at

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

, and at

weddings A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...

when playing music to lead a wedding dance. It is mainly played by men such as

griots A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repos ...

(or ''praise-singers''), and is played either solo or to accompany songs of praise. Today, few endongos are manufactured as it is considered one of the most difficult instruments to make.

History

How or when the lyre was introduced to the area that is now Uganda is unknown. Wachsmann (1971) speculates that the instrument emerged with the

Luo Luo may refer to: Luo peoples and languages *Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa **Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. ***Luoland, the ...

migrations from

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It was then adopted by the

, and afterwards, finally reached the court of the Baganda King Mutesa I.

Construction and Design

Similar to other instruments from the lyre family, the endongo has a

yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, us ...

supported by two arms which rise from each side of the

sound box A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vibr ...

, with strings passing from the base of the sound box to the yoke. The endongo’s sound box is in the shape of a bowl, hence the term bowl lyre. It has an almost

hemispherical A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

shape, and is generally carved from the

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

''makembya'' tree (also known as ''olusambya''). In the past, the skin of the

(locally known as ''enswaswa'') was used to cover the bowl to act as a sound board. Due to the status of the monitor lizard as a

protected species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and invas ...

and the extremely high price of its skin, ant lizard skin has become more commonly used to construct the instrument. Still, the drier ant lizard skin is considered inferior due to its lesser pliability.

Audio Examples (External Links)

Songs with endongo bowl lyre and a humorous song with drums from the Ganda of Buganda district (Central Province), Uganda
By Various Artists recorded in 1950, From Smithsonian Folkways
Joel Sebunjo: "Heart of a Griot"
Royal Endongo Music of Uganda
Endongo (bowl lyre) scale, sung by Albert Ssempeke
Part of Peter Cooke Uganda Recordings

Historical song, sung to the bowl lyre endongo

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal, last=Gray, first=Catherine T., title=The Ugandan Lyre endongo and Its Music, journal=British Journal of Ethnomusicology, year=1993, volume=2, pages=117–142, jstor=3060753 {{cite journal, last=Fallers, first=Margaret Chave, title=The Eastern Lacustrine Bantu, journal=East Central Africa, year=1960, volume=XI, jstor=3060753 {{cite journal, last=Wachsmann, first=K.P., title=Musical instruments in Kiganda historical tradition and their place in the East African scene, journal=Essays on music and history in Africa, year=1971, pages=93–134, jstor=3060753 Lyres Ugandan musical instruments