NDARA 🇺🇬
In this video, filmed at the Alur Cultural Festival in Kampala by @kogot.peter we see the ndara, a large log xylophone laid on the ground and played simultaneously by several musicians. The ndara is the traditional xylophone of the Alur, a Luo-speaking people living between Uganda’s West Nile region and the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Historically described as consisting of eight wooden keys placed over bundles of grass and positioned above a resonating pit, in contemporary contexts expanded versions are often found, featuring a greater number of keys, yet still recognized as ndara within the Luo-Alur tradition.
Very similar instruments appear under different names in various regions of Uganda and the Congo, for example: the endara among the Bakonjo/Nande, the amadinda among the Baganda, and the embaíre among the Basoga. These names are not merely lexical variants since each one refers to a specific cultural context, repertoire, and construction details, yet all belong to the broader family of African log xylophones.