Arched harp

Description

This instrument was collected in the field by Percy Horace Gordon and Hannah Powell-Cotton. It is an arched harp made with a tortoise-shell resonator covered with shaved animal skin stretched on the top (soundtable), and laced with hide to a bottom skin patch. The soundtable has four soundholes. The angled neck is made of wood and it rests on the bottom of the resonator bowl, piercing the soundtable. It has six thin, wooden tuning pegs and strings made of vegetable fibers. The strings also pierce the soundtable and are attached to a strip of wood (stringholder) that passes along the length of the bowl.