This is an instrument that we recently purchased from a trader who brings us djembes. He lives NYC and imports artifacts from his travels throughout the small villages in Western Africa. We have been asking him the find an original akonting, the ancestor of the banjo and after several years of pestering he finally brought us this gourd instrument. It consists of a large, 26" diameter gourd covered with a skin membrane. The neck is a curved wooden stick through the body with three, thick gut strings. He told us that he purchased it from a high member of the Dogan tribe in a Mandengo village in Mali. The people did not want to sell and explained that it was 200 years old. Of course, we imagine this was an exaggeration but it certainly has considerable age and it is of museum quality. It fits in well with the interesting offerings we have as it certainly was the type of instrument that might have accompanied the slaves from Western Africa to the new world. Recently we were made aware of a You Tube video showing the same exact instrument referred to as a Donsu-Ngoni or hunter's harp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwg11QrIpGk