double bell, nikələŋ

Double-headed bell system of the Tunen-speaking Banen people of Cameroon, described in Dugast (1955). The instrument itself (nikələŋ in Tunen) consists of two parallel iron cones fastened to a wooden handle; struck with a beater, the larger and smaller bells produce lower and high pitches respectively. Dugast reports that the system is used for the same purpose as the drum and whistling systems, encoding the H and L tones of the spoken language (735). The nikələŋ sometimes doubles a sung melody during vocal performance, and is associated with the performance of texts celebrating the birth of twins (735).

Dugast, I. (1955). 36. LE LANGAGE TAMBOURINÉ OU SIFFLÉ CHEZ LES BANEN was published in Part 2 on page 708. In T. A. Sebeok & J. Umiker-Sebeok, Speech Surrogates: Drum and Whistle Systems (pp. 708–741). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110804423-007