Gunibri

This small gunibri is heavily embellished. The back of its small, circular resonator is adorned with cowrie shells, which frame both its width and a mirror. The sound board is made from parchment on which a hamsa–a palm-shaped symbol that, broadly speaking, signifies unity and protection from evil, in North Africa and the Middle East–has been drawn. The neck pierces the top and bottom of the resonator and is also decorated in a similar fashion to the resonator. It is adorned with a line of cowrie shells at the back, and topped with a leather tassel, the ends of which also have cowrie shells. The instrument has two strings that are made from the gut of an animal. They are attached high on the neck and at the very bottom of the neck with leather rings. The instrument’s very small size, along with its embellishments, suggests that it was not meant to be played, but was rather built for a touristic market. In scholarship up through the twentieth century, lutes like these across the African continent have been described with the blanket Arabic Moroccan term gunbri or gunibri, which has been cause for much confusion, particularly since each ethnic group across North Africa and northern sub-Saharan Africa has their own kind of lute with its own name. (Althea SullyCole, 2022)