Horn

Horn system employed by the Idoma people of Nigeria, described by Armstrong (1953) and Blench (1987). The instrument itself (òpò in Idoma) is a transverse horn fashioned from cow or antelope horns (Armstrong 1953:873). The horns “have five or six notes … [they] achieve considerable musical expressiveness” (873). Armstrong analyzes the language to have three tonal registers, L M and H, and the system (as with other Idoma surrogate instruments) likely uses contrastive pitch to encode linguistic tones. Armstrong reports a high degree of comprehension among his informants: “there was never the slightest question about the interpretations which my neighbors gave to the horn calls” (874). Antelope horns in particular are associated with the ceremonies of men’s secret societies (873). Blench notes that the òpò was “traditionally used in warfare, by players who climbed trees and relayed battle movements to the fighters”, and that smaller varieties (òpíkɛ) are used by hunters to communicate (50).

Blench, R. (1987). Idoma musical instruments. African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 6(4), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v6i4.1260,Armstrong, R. G. (1953). 46. TALKING INSTRUMENTS IN WEST AFRICA. In T. A. Sebeok & J. Umiker-Sebeok (Eds.), Speech Surrogates: Drum and Whistle Systems. 1976. (pp. 865–878). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110804423-017