EARLY IMAGES OF AFRICAN MUSIC

The following images are from manuscript and early published sources on Angola and the Congo. The most important source if the Manoscritto Araldi by Cavazzi, which has a series of paintings of probably mostly court music. The commentaries below discuss briefly the accuracy of the images.

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AUTHOR	IMAGE	COMMENT
Cavazzi		The picture shows a gourd-resonated xylophone, a single-stringed arched harp and a polyglobular vessel-horn, made of two gourds. The playing position of the horn looks wrong, as it would be blown like a trumpet.
Cavazzi		The picture shows a subconical single-headed drum and a pluriarc. It is quite unlikely these would be played together in this fashion
Cavazzi		The picture shows Queen Zinga with her retinue, including a drummer and players of transverse ivory horns
Cavazzi		The picture shows Queen Zinga with her retinue, including players of the transverse ivory horn
Cavazzi		The picture shows a perplexing mixture of a head-hunter, a crucifix on the ground, and a player of the double iron bell
Cavazzi		The picture shows a running Jaga warrior with a double iron bell. The Jaga were the notorious predatory raiders and cannibals encountered by the Portuguese
Cavazzi		The picture shows a royal court with retinue including a pluriarc player
Cavazzi		A scene of blacksmithing with musical ensemble in the background
Cavazzi		The picture shows a closeup of the pluriarc player in the previous scene
Bonanni		The picture shows a single-stringed fiddle
Bonanni		The picture shows either a musical bow or a rattling stick
Bonanni		The picture shows a sanza player
Bonanni		The picture shows a player of paired gourd-rattles
Bonanni		The picture shows a very inaccurate image of a portable xylophone. Cf. Cavazi earlier which is much closer to reality
Bonanni		The picture shows a very inaccurate image of a ground-standing xylophone.
Bonanni		The picture shows a player of a quadrilateral struck bell. It is much more likely that this type of bell had an internal clapper
Bonanni		The picture shows a player of a double iron bell. The profile of the bells is very unlikely as they would normally not be conical but flat and wide
Bonanni		The picture shows a player of the scraped notched stick. The instrument looks very inaccurate. Normally the stick has an oval profile and it is usually not played sitting down like this
Bonanni		The picture shows a scraped notched stick with a gourd resonator. These instruments, strange though they appear, are found in Southern Angola and northern Namibia
Bonanni		The picture shows a cylindrical two-headed drum
Ferrario		The picture shows a composite dance scene, apparently made up from figures in previous publications