Luba · Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa
Horn, kímàmà
AerophoneHorn
Summary
Horn system of the Luba-Samba people of the DR Congo, mentioned in Van Avermaet (1945). The language has H, L, contour tones and likely downstepped H tones. The instrument itself (kímàmà in Luba) is a transverse horn fashioned from an antelope antler or buffalo horn, with a fingering hole at its narrow tip and a lip-slit on the horn’s side. A higher and lower note sounds when the fingering hole is covered or uncovered respectively; these pitches encode H and L tones in the language as in the Luba slit-log drum system (12).
Bibliography
Van Avermaet (1945)