Nyamwezi Trough Zither

This wooden sculpture is a stringed instrument known as a ligombo, a form of elongated trough zither attributed to the Nyamwezi people of Tanzania and greater East Africa. Originally secured to a resonator made of dried gourd, the ligombo was held close to the body and played by plucking at the six strings once drawn vertically across the shallow wooden body. At one end of the zither is a narrow handle, carved as a female figure with glass bead eyes. Elevated by a custom steel mount, this traditional instrument lives on as a sculptural object, an ideal way to add texture and vertical lines to a space.

The Nyamwezi people are a large, loosely connected agrarian group primarily residing in north-central Tanzania and were known as the "people of the west," sometimes translated as "people of the moon" due to new moons being visible only when setting in the west.