•There are some items of material culture related to plantains that seem to be related to their
diversification in
the Bight of Biafra area.
•A musical instrument connected with plantains has a distribution suggesting an origin in this
zone. The second is
the plantain-stem xylophone, the distribution of which maps very approximately against plantain diversity. The wooden bars of the
xylophone are laid transversely
across fresh Musa stems.
•No analogous instrument is reported from Indonesia, suggesting that the instrument evolved
subsequent to the
introduction of the plantain. This xylophone is today found in areas where the banana is
the staple, but
the map suggests very strongly that West Central Africa is its original nucleus of
distribution.