Heritage

Music, Dance & Storytelling

Songs, dances such as Okeme and Abuda, and the stories told by elders.

Dance

A Lango folk dance and thumb-piano tradition, performed at weddings, introduction ceremonies and graduations.

Dance

A traditional Lango dance.

Storytelling

A favourite pastime: inventing phrases that sound like the calls of birds.

Storytelling

Evenings round the fire, animal stories and the narrators people invited for a pot of beer.

Music

Flute bands made of antelope horn, war trumpets, and the whistle each man kept for himself.

Dance

A leaping men's dance with unison movement and octave singing, led by a drum-chime player.

Dance

A flute-accompanied dance recorded by the early ethnographer Driberg in 1923.

Dance

The commonest Lango dance of the early twentieth century: leaping in time to the drums.

Storytelling

Short sayings that carry the wisdom of the elders, as recorded in 1923.

Storytelling

Hoops and spears, imitation drums, action songs and dolls made of sweet potato.

Music

A tall drum and six squat ones, tuned from high to low: the drums that led Lango dances.

Music

The old Lango harp: a boat-shaped body, six strings and no bow, rarely heard by 1923.