slit-log drum pair, lenga, ako-lenga, eyi-lenga

Drumming system of the Banda Linda people in the Central African Republic, mentioned by described Félix Éboué (1933), described by France Cloarec-Heiss (1999) and Simha Arom (2007). The instrument itself consists of a pair of slit-log drums (lenga in a pair of lenga, “barrel-shaped” wooden slit-log drums, with a smaller ako-lenga (“husband-lenga”) and larger eyi-lenga (“mother-lenga”) that is “about 1,20 metres long” (Arom). Banda-Linda is a tone language with L, M, and H as well as LH rising and HL falling contours (Arom) The lenga produce three distinct pitches when struck with rubber-wrapped mallets; low and mid tones are produced by striking opposite sides of the eyi-lenga, and high tone by striking either side of the ako-lenga (Arom). Each drummed pitch level corresponds to the equivalent tonal register in spoken Banda-Linda. Grammatical tonal processes are encoded as well as, possibly, post-lexical tone generally: “we found a one-to-one correspondence between the pitch of the drum beats and the pitch of the vowels in the matching spoken utterances” (Cloarec-Heiss 146). Longer breaks between tones encode word boundaries, and the “final tone of a noun or a phrase is struck more heavily and held slightly longer” (146). In a CVCV structure where the medial consonant is a liquid, the break between syllables is shortened; this may reflect a post-lexical process that often deletes the first of the two vowels of this structure in the spoken language (147). Two adjacent vowels with the same tone are encoded with a “single lengthened beat” (147). According to Cloarec-Heiss, “any Banda-Linda speaker can understand drum messages” without special knowledge (146). Played alone, content includes long-distance communication and announcements regarding births, deaths, traditional ceremonies, and administrative information, as well as names, greetings, and even directions given to lost travelers. The lenga are also played in musical contexts, where they are primarily “assigned a specific rhythmic pattern” or ostinato, but may be embellished with purely musical improvisations or “drummed utterances” (Arom). Content in this setting tends to include “invectives,” ribald jokes, and humorous insults (Arom).

Arom, S. (2007). Language and music in fusion: The drum language of the Banda Linda (Central African Republic). Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música, 11, 0.