Akonting

According to the Jola tradition, the main body of the akonting is made from a gourd, the skin of an animal (in most cases it is likely to be a calf's skin), and a large papyrus stalk (though large wooden dowels/rods are also used).

Firstly, a large gourd cut into a hemispherical shape is filled with packed sand, to aid in its structural integrity throughout the building process. in the sand, a line is marked out across the gourd's diameter for the papyrus stalk to snugly pass through later on. On either end of line, a notch is cut into the gourd, which is what the stalk will fit into later.

With the help of several people, an animal skin is stretched over the open half of the gourd and tacks are inserted through the edge of the skin into the gourd to secure it in place and keep it at tension. the skin is then trimmed to size as closely to the tacks as possible. Often, a longer piece is left untrimmed in about four different places around the gourd, where any final pulling and retensioning of the skin can be made. These flaps can later be intricately cut and twisted and tacked into place for an artistic effect.

The papyrus stalk is cut to size with a knife and sharpened to a point on one end. Above each place where the notches were carved into the gourd, a small slit is made in the skin, where the papyrus stalk is pushed through, spike first, all the way along so that the spike is at the 'head' of the instrument and a fairly small length of the stalk serves as a 'spike' or 'tail' sticking out of the back end of the gourd, from where the strings are attached. A circular hole is cut into the side of the gourd to empty the sand out of it. Often, an additional decorative hole will be cut into the gourd.

A fairly thick bridge (compared to western standards) is cut from a block of wood, with three notches for the three strings. The strings themselves are made from 60-80 pound test fishing line. They are attached to the instrument first with a slip knot, which is attached to the bottom end of the papyrus stalk. Then it is attached at the top with a fairly complicated knot, which traditionally involves holding the string in place on the stalk while wrapping the excess length of the line around the stalk and itself six times, then on the next three times it is wrapped around the stalk and under the string, pulled upwards and fed through the loop made from where the maker's finger was holding the string in place. This keeps the string in place with high friction. After all three lengths of strings are attached, the bridge is fitted in the middle of the skin covering of the gourd, each foot of the bridge resting on either side of the stalk. The strings are tuned using a hard, flat object, such as the handle of a metal spoon, which is put underneath the string up against the top knot, and, using the leverage from the handle, is pulled upwards to sharpen the note.

Of all the myriad variety of West African plucked lutes, the Jola akonting stands out as the one instrument today that bears the strongest resemblance to early North American gourd banjos. This is seen not just in its physiology but also in the traditional technique used to play the akonting, called o'teck (literally, "to stroke"), which is basically the same as the stroke, or frailing style, considered to be the oldest extant technique for playing the banjo.

Both the akonting o'teck and the banjo stroke style are forms of down-picking, a technique in which the fingernail of a single finger – either the index or middle finger – is used to strike the individual melody strings in a downward motion, like a plectrum. This action is immediately followed by the player's thumb catching on the top short "thumb string" to create a rhythmic back-beat accompaniment.

It was the stroke style of banjo that European American performers, who came to be known as blackface minstrels (see minstrel show), initially learned from African American musicians in the early 19th century. (The blackface minstrels popularized the banjo in the 1830s and 40s. Prior to that the banjo was a folk instrument exclusive to African American and African Caribbean musicians.) This was the prevalent form of playing the 5-string banjo until the advent of the guitar style of up-picking in the late 1860s, also referred to as finger-picking. The stroke style of down-picking has survived to this very day in the folk traditions of both the black and white communities of the rural South, where it's commonly referred to as frailing, clawhammer, thumping, among other terms.

Remarkably, the Jola o'teck technique of playing the akonting is the only extant down-picking style of lute playing found in all of West Africa thus far. Even more pertinent to the ongoing search for the banjo's ancestors, it's the only West African lute with a banjo-like short "thumb string" which is played in this manner.

In addition to the Jola akonting, the Manjago buchundu, the Papel busunde, the Balanta kisinta, and all the various kinds of wooden-bodied lutes that are exclusive to the griots (for example, the Mande ngoni, the Wolof xalam, the Fula hoddu, and the Soninke gambare) have a short "thumb string" drone. The "thumb string" seems to be a feature unique to lutes of Senegambian origin which have three or more strings and are played with the fingers, regardless of playing style. Conversely, 1-string lutes (e.g. the gourd-bodied gambra of the Haratin of Mauritania) and 2-string lutes (e.g. the gourd-bodied koliko of the Frafra of Ghana and the wooden-bodied garaya of the Hausa of Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana) are played with flat-pick type plectrums, so a drone string is useless on these instruments.

The standard griot playing technique is a 2-finger up-picking pattern: the player's index finger plucks up on a melody string, followed by the thumb plucking the short drone string, and culminating with the index finger brushing down all the strings. While the griot technique is strikingly similar to some styles of old-time 2-finger up-picking found in various regions of rural southern United States, it is distinctly different from down-picking and not related to the early "stroke style" of playing the 5-string banjo or its descendants, the various old-time Southern down-picking styles.

In the mid-1980s, when Gambian Jola scholar/musician Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta first began to research and document his people's folk lute, the akonting, the tradition of making and playing the instrument was relatively unknown outside of the rural Jola villages found throughout Senegambia. Even within these Jola communities, there were very few young people interested in carrying on the akonting tradition. Recognizing this fact, Daniel's father, a traditional akonting player originally from the instrument's birthplace, the Casamance region of Senegal, implored him to take up the akonting and help perpetuate this vital element of their people's cultural heritage.

Today, there is a burgeoning revival of interest in the akonting within its home region of Senegambia. Young akonting players like Bouba Diedhiou, a teenage radio performer from a rural Casamance village is carrying on the traditional style; also, Sana Ndiaye, best known for his work with the Dakar-based hip hop group Gokh-Bi System, is introducing the instrument to broader audiences.

Thanks to the work of Daniel Jatta, as well as the vital efforts of Swedish banjoist/researcher Ulf Jägfors, British banjo historian Nick Bamber, American old-time country musician/scholar Ben Nelson, banjoist/ gourd musical instrument expert/builder Paul Sedgwick, and others, there is growing global awareness of the akonting and its siblings in the large diverse family of West African folk/artisan lutes, which have been hitherto overlooked. These instruments are just now beginning to get the international recognition and attention they deserve as living ancestors of the banjo. Many museums around the world have updated their collections to include the akonting and other members of the West African folk/artisan lute family, while banjo historians and ethnomusicologists have begun to broaden the range of their focus to include these instruments.

• Xalam

• Akonting: a West African Ancestor of the Banjo
• Banjo Ancestors: The Akonting & Buchundu Folk Lutes
• The African Akonting & The Origins of the Banjo
• Banjo Ancestors: the Lutes of West Africa
• The Early Banjo in the New World
• Internet Radio Interview w/ Daniel Jatta + Field Recordings of Akonting