Musical instruments and other utilitarian and prestige objects were made and exchanged among the Azande and Mangbetu kingdoms of the northeastern Congo region. At court entertainments, itinerant minstrels and retainers played gracefully curved bow harps to accompany their stories, poems, and songs. This harp, with four tuning pegs to tighten the strings (now lost) to the leather sounding box, has a sculptured head that suggests an Azande origin. Larger instrumental forms such as drums and gongs were used to communicate between villages in the area.

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