long drum, long-drum

Long drum system used by the Bissago people of Guinea-Bissau, described in Wilson (1963) (as “Bijagó”) along with surrogates of several related Bak languages and Sua. The instrument itself is a tapered long drum up to 6 feet long and 7 inches wide, supported by a rope around the player’s shoulder. It is played with palm of the left hand and a short stick in the right; it produces multiple timbres, only “certain [of which] are selected for sending spoken messages” (809); it does appear that H and L tones in the language correspond to high and low pitches on the drum. The surrogate practice is mostly employed by young Bissago men before initiation in their early twenties, though young women also play the drum in a musical context (808).

Wilson (1963)