Description

This is a lyre instrument from East Africa, possibly the Nyatiti from Kenya. The nyatiti is a five to eight-stringed plucked bowl yoke lute played by the Luo people of Western Kenya, specifically in the Siaya region south of Kisumu. It is about two to three feet long with a bowl-shaped, carved wood resonator covered in cow skin. Historically, strings were fashioned from cattle tendons, but modern players almost exclusively use nylon and plastic fishing line of various sizes, a move which changed the sound of the nyatiti drastically.