3-028-690 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum: Kasso, from Senegambia (negro), 1870. 'Mr. Carl Engel observes that the first and simplest African harp was that very common weapon of warfare or the chase, the bow - an elastic stick bent by a string. The Damaras, for instance, are accustomed often, in idle times, to use their bows as a musical instrument, tying a leather thong across the bow-string, not quite in its middle, so as to divide its length into two unequal parts, which yield two different sounds. The addition of a hollow gourd for a soundboard will make a guitar. The kasso of Senegambia, with its strings made of the tough fibres of a creeping-plant, is another example of this kind'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.