Gourd Banjo Progress (Banjo #19)
Added 2019-09-01 19:06:04 +0000 UTCInspired by Hans Sloane's sketch of two "strum strumps" from Jamaica published 1701. The two gourd lutes drawn by Sloane are two-stringed instruments lacking the short thumb string necessary for me to consider them banjos. While each instrument is shown with a mysterious set of small dots on the fret board where thumb pegs might reside, the artist clearly differentiated these from the tuning pegs. These are definitely shown as vertical pegs inserted through the peg head AND are attached to defined strings running the length of the lute. Either Sloane had early gourd banjos but drew the thumb pegs wrong or he had some kind of Atlantic Creole lutes that lacked thumb strings.
Photos by Robyn M. Latham
