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42-424: Gourd is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins , cucumbers , squash , luffa , and melons . More specifically, gourd refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita , or also to their hollow, dried-out shell. There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from

84-470: A komenchang . An Igbo variation exists with only one large tuned key for each player. And while in most cases a single player hits multiple keys with two mallets, some traditions place two or more players at each keyboard. The Susu and Malinké people of Guinea are closely identified with the balafon, as are the other Manding peoples of Mali , Senegal , and the Gambia . Cameroon , Chad , and even

126-513: A xylophone that has gourds attached to the bottom of each note for resonance . Gourds have maintained a prominent role in the mythology of numerous cultures. In regard to Christianity , several artists such as Frans Floris and Carlo Crivelli have depicted the gourd as a symbol of the Resurrection of Christ, juxtaposed with the Fruit of Good and Evil that was consumed by Adam and Eve. In

168-554: A lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community for extended periods. The continual publication of new data and diverse opinions plays a crucial role in facilitating adjustments and ultimately reaching a consensus over time. The naming of families is codified by various international bodies using the following suffixes: The taxonomic term familia was first used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in his Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he called

210-462: A low stool (or while standing using a shoulder or waist sling hooked to its frame). As the balafon cultures vary across West Africa, so does the approach to the instrument itself. In many areas the balafon is played alone in a ritual context, in others as part of an ensemble. In Guinea and Mali, the balafon is often part of an ensemble of three, pitched low, medium and high. In Cameroon, six balafon of varying size perform together in an orchestra, called

252-487: A multitude of uses including food storage , cooking tools, toys, musical instruments and decoration. Today, gourds are commonly used for a wide variety of crafts, including jewelry, furniture, dishes, utensils and a wide variety of decorations using carving, burning and other techniques such as lamps and containers for storing objects. Just one example of a musical instrument is the West African Balafon ,

294-429: A region that shares many musical traditions with those of northern Ivory Coast and Ghana. It is made with 14 wooden keys of an African hardwood called liga attached to a wooden frame, below which hang calabash gourds. Spider web silk covers small holes in the gourds to produce a buzzing sound and antelope sinew and leather are used for the fastenings. The instrument is played with rubber-headed wooden mallets. During

336-544: A story of the formation of the Mali Empire , tells that a griot (praise-singer) named Bala Faséké Kouyaté convinced Sosso king Sumanguru Kante to employ him after sneaking into Sumanguru's palace and playing the sacred instrument. Sundiata Keita , founder of the Mali Empire overthrew Sumanguru, seized the balafon, and made the griot Faséké its guardian. This honor is said to have passed down through his family,

378-405: A temple storehouse, and can only be removed and played after undergoing purification rites. Specific instruments may be built to be only played for specific rituals and repertoires. Young adepts are trained not on the sacred instrument, but on free-key pit balafons. The gyil ( English: / ˈ dʒ ɪ l ə / or / ˈ dʒ iː l / ) is the name of a buzzing pentatonic balafon common to

420-543: Is a gourd -resonated xylophone , a type of struck idiophone . It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé , Bwaba Bobo , Senoufo and Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch of the Mandinka ethnic group, but is now found across West Africa from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali . Its common name, balafon , is likely a European coinage combining its Mandinka name ߓߟߊ bala with

462-499: Is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family— or whether a described family should be acknowledged— is established and decided upon by active taxonomists . There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to

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504-399: Is generally capable of producing 18 to 21 notes, though some are built to produce many fewer notes (16, 12, 8 or even 6 and 7). Balafon keys are traditionally made from kosso rosewood, dried slowly over a low flame, and then tuned by shaving off bits of wood from the underside of the keys. Wood is taken off the middle to flatten the key or the end to sharpen it. In a fixed-key balafon,

546-567: Is often depicted carrying a staff with a gourd attached to its end. Li Tieguai , one of the Eight Immortals is also often depicted with a bottle gourd that contains a special medicine that he uses to aid the sick, poor, or needy. These depictions denote the fruit's significance as a symbol of longevity and the power of medicine within Chinese culture. Family (biology) Family ( Latin : familia , pl. : familiae )

588-485: Is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy . It is classified between order and genus . A family may be divided into subfamilies , which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae , but that family

630-427: Is really the act of playing the bala . Bala still is used as the name of a large bass balafon in the region of Kolokani and Bobo Dioulasso . These bala have especially long keys and huge calabashes for amplification. Balani is then used as the name of the high pitched, small balafon with small calabashes and short (3 to 4 cm long) keys. The balani is carried with a strap and usually has 21 keys, while

672-539: Is the Rail Band , led by Salif Keita . Even when not still played, its distinctive sound and traditional style has been exported to western instruments. Maninka from eastern Guinea play a type of guitar music that adapts balafon playing style to the imported instrument. In the Malinké language balafon is a compound of two words: balan is the name of the instrument and fô is the verb to play . Balafon therefore

714-461: Is usually played in pairs, accompanied by a calabash gourd drum called a kuor . It can also be played by one person with the drum and the stick part as accompaniment, or by a soloist. Gyil duets are the traditional music of Dagara funerals. The instrument is generally played by men, who learn to play while young; however, there is no restriction on gender. It is also played by the Gurunsi people of

756-560: The Genera Plantarum of George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker this word ordo was used for what now is given the rank of family. Families serve as valuable units for evolutionary, paleontological, and genetic studies due to their relatively greater stability compared to lower taxonomic levels like genera and species. Balafon The balafon (pronounced / ˈ b æ l ə f ɒ n / , or, by analogy with xylophone etc., / ˈ b æ l ə f oʊ n / )

798-750: The Gur -speaking populations in northern Ghana , Burkina Faso , southeastern Mali and northern Ivory Coast in West Africa . Among Mande populations in Ghana like the Ligbi (Numu), Bissa and Dyula , the same instrument is known as bala . The gyil is the primary traditional instrument of the Dagara people of northern Ghana and Burkina Faso, and of the Lobi of Ghana, southern Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast . The gyil

840-757: The Old Testament of the Christian bible, a gourd tree was used to shield Jonah from intense weather conditions while he was surveying Nineveh. This terminology is contested by the New King James Version which calls which simply uses the term plant. In Catholicism , the calabash and rod that pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago adorn have become synonymous with the image of Raphael (archangel) . The gourd also makes frequent appearances in Chinese mythology. The Chinese god of longevity Shouxing

882-629: The Upper East Region of Ghana, as well as neighbouring Gurunsi populations across the border in south and central Burkina Faso. A dance related to the gyil is the Bewaa . The gyil's design is similar to the balaba or balafon used by the Mande -speaking Bambara , Dyula and Sosso peoples further west in southern Mali and western Burkina Faso , as well as the Senoufo people of Sikasso ,

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924-497: The gyil of the Dagara , Lobi and Gurunsi from Ghana , Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast . Similar instruments are played in parts of Central Africa , with the ancient Kingdom of Kongo denoting the instrument as palaku . Records of the balafon go back to at least the 12th century CE. In 1352 CE, Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reported the existence of the ngoni and balafon at the court of Malian ruler Mansa Suleyman . European visitors to West Africa described balafons in

966-527: The 17th century largely identical to the modern instrument. The Atlantic Slave Trade brought some balafon players to the Americas. The Virginia Gazette records African-Americans playing a barrafoo in 1776, which appears to be a balafon. Other North American references to these instruments die out by the mid-19th century. The balafon has seen a resurgence since the 1980s in the growth of African Roots Music and World Music . Most famous of these exponents

1008-482: The 1950s, bars sprang up across Cameroon's capital to accommodate an influx of new inhabitants, and soon became a symbol for Cameroonian identity in the face of colonialism. Balafon orchestras, consisting of 3–5 balafons and various percussion instruments became common in these bars. Some of these orchestras, such as Richard Band de Zoetele , became quite popular in spite of scorn from the European elite. The middle of

1050-452: The 20th century saw the popularisation of a native folk music called bikutsi . Bikutsi is based on a war rhythm played with various rattles , drums and balafon. Sung by women, bikutsi featured sexually explicit lyrics and songs about everyday problems. In a popularised form, bikutsi gained mainstream success in the 1950s. Anne-Marie Nzie was perhaps the most important of the early innovators. The next bikutsi performer of legendary stature

1092-715: The Kouyatés, and conveys upon them mastership of the balafon to this day. Historians Jan Jansen and Francis Simonis have argued that the Sosso Bala was in fact 'invented' as a historical artifact by the Kouyaté family in the 1970s. Regardless of the truth of this story, the Sosso Bala was named by UNESCO as one of the Nineteen Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001. The title of

1134-566: The company of prophets' stew according to a story of Elisha in the Hebrew Bible . Elisha added flour to the stew in order to purify it. This interpretation of the verse is disputed by Rashi's interpretation, who translates it as poisonous mushrooms, not poisonous gourds. Gourds continued to be used throughout history in almost every culture throughout the world. European contact in North America found extensive gourd use, including

1176-477: The electric guitar by linking the strings together with pieces of paper, thus giving the instrument a damper tone that emitted a "thudding" sound similar to the balafon. The balafon, kora (lute-harp), and the ngoni (the ancestor of the banjo ) are the three instruments most associated with griot bardic traditions of West Africa. Each is more closely associated with specific areas, communities, and traditions, though all are played together in ensembles throughout

1218-540: The family as a rank intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796). He used families (some of them were not named) in some but not in all his orders of "insects" (which then included all arthropods ). In nineteenth-century works such as the Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and

1260-666: The genus Luffa , as well as the wax gourd , snake gourd , teasel gourd , hedgehog gourd , buffalo gourd /coyote gourd. The bitter melon /balsam apple/balsam pear is also sometimes referred to as a gourd. L. siceraria or bottle gourd, are native to the Americas, being found in Peruvian archaeological sites dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BC and Thailand sites from 11,000 to 6,000 BC. A study of bottle gourd DNA published in 2005 suggests that there are two distinct subspecies of bottle gourds, domesticated independently in Africa and Asia,

1302-588: The genus Cucurbita (mostly native to North America, including the Malabar gourd and turban squash ), Crescentia cujete (the tree gourd or calabash tree, native to the American tropics) and Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd, thought to be originally from Africa but present worldwide). Other plants with gourd in their name include the luffa gourd (likely domesticated in Asia), which includes several species from

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1344-442: The keys are suspended by leather straps just above a wooden frame, under which are hung graduated-size calabash gourd resonators. A small hole in each gourd is covered with a membrane traditionally of thin spider's-egg sac filaments (nowadays more usually of cigarette paper or thin plastic film) to produce the characteristic nasal-buzz timbre of the instrument, which is usually played with two gum-rubber-wound mallets while seated on

1386-591: The latter approximately 4,000 years earlier. The gourds found in the Americas appear to have come from the Asian subspecies very early in history, although a new study now indicates Africa. The archaeological and DNA records show it is likely that the gourd was among the first domesticated species, in Asia between 12,000 and 13,000 years before present , and possibly the first domesticated plant species. Wild, poisonous gourds ( Citrullus colocynthis ) were unknowingly added to

1428-468: The nations of the Congo Basin have long balafon traditions. Often, balafon players will wear belled bracelets on each wrist, accentuating the sound of the keys. In some cultures the balafon was (and in some still is) a sacred instrument, playable only by trained religious caste members and only at ritual events such as festivals, royal, funerial, or marriage celebrations. Here the balafon is kept in

1470-412: The number of keys on a bala vary with region. A balafon can be either fixed-key (where the keys are strung over a fixed frame, usually with calabash resonators underneath) or free-key (where the keys are placed independently on any padded surface). The balafon usually has 17–21 keys, tuned to a tetratonic , pentatonic or heptatonic scale, depending on the culture of the musician. The balafon

1512-508: The region. Guinea has been the historic heartland of solo balafon. As griot culture is a hereditary caste, the Kouyaté family has been called the keepers of the balafon , and twentieth century members of this family have helped introduce it throughout the world. The Sosso Bala is a balafon, currently kept in the town of Niagassola , Guinea that is reputed to be the original balafon, constructed over 800 years ago. The Epic of Sundiata ,

1554-575: The seventy-six groups of plants he recognised in his tables families ( familiae ). The concept of rank at that time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera , which is far from how the term is used today. In his work Philosophia Botanica published in 1751, Carl Linnaeus employed the term familia to categorize significant plant groups such as trees , herbs , ferns , palms , and so on. Notably, he restricted

1596-452: The unpleasant taste while retaining the nutritional and medicinal values of the plants. These include Teasle gourd ( Momordica dioica ) , Spine gourd ( Momordica subangulata ), Sweet gourd ( Momordica cochinchinensis ), balsam apple ( Momordica balsamina ) and Momordica sahyadrica . Cultures from arid regions often associate gourds with water , and they appear in many creation myths . Since before human written history, they have had

1638-591: The use of bottle gourds as birdhouses to attract purple martins , which provided bug control for agriculture. Almost every culture had musical instruments made of gourds, including drums, stringed instruments common to Africa and wind instruments, including the nose flutes of the Pacific. Scientists in India have been working on crossbreeding six members of the Momordica (bitter gourd) genus found in India to reduce

1680-549: The use of this term solely within the book's morphological section, where he delved into discussions regarding the vegetative and generative aspects of plants. Subsequently, in French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille was used as a French equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo naturalis ). In zoology ,

1722-590: The word ߝߐ߲ fôn 'to speak' or the Greek root phono . Believed to have been developed independently of the Southern African and South American instrument now called the marimba , oral histories of the balafon date it to at least the rise of the Mali Empire in the 12th century CE. Balafon is a Manding name, but variations exist across West Africa, including the balangi in Sierra Leone and

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1764-567: Was Messi Me Nkonda Martin and his band, Los Camaroes , who added electric guitars and other new elements. Balafon orchestras had remained popular throughout the 50s in Yaoundé's bar scene, but the audience demanded modernity and the popular style at the time was unable to cope. Messi Martin was a Cameroonian guitarist who had been inspired to learn the instrument by listening to Spanish language -broadcasts from neighboring Equatorial Guinea , as well as Cuban and Zairean rumba . Messi changed

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