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Lamellaphone
This instrument was collected in the field by Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton. It is a recycled lamellaphone, or thumb piano, with a resonator box adapted from an old Huntley & Palmers "Coronation" biscuit tin can, a company that by 1900 was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world. The board is made of wood, having a roughly carved soundhole, and is attached to the box with rattan. There are six lamellas made of the hard outer skin of raffia (Raphia sp.), attached to the board with rattan that also functions as pressure bar. The bridge and backrest are made of bamboo dowels, and there is a strap made of rattan.
- Date:
1905–6 - Maker:
- Collection:
Powell-Cotton Museum - Inventory number:
Loading... - Place of production:
Edward Nyanza (area), Democratic Republic of Congo - Hornbostel-Sachs classification:122.12 Lamellaphones (or plucked idiophones) with laced-on, or hooked-in lamellae, with resonator
- Culture:
- Period:
- Materials:
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- Decorative elements:Original paper label of can in blue, with red and white decoration.
- Inscriptions:Can label: Hunter & Palmers, "Superior" Reading Biscuits|Detailed product label on the bottom of the can.
- Hornbostel-Sachs category:122.12 Lamellaphones (or plucked idiophones) with laced-on, or hooked-in lamellae, with resonator
- Repository:Powell-Cotton Museum
- Measurements:Length: 230mm; Width: 105mm; Depth: 110mm