Akajebajebe

The akajebajebe is a hand rattle from East Africa: one or more dried seed pods fixed to a stick.

The pods are pierced at the top and bottom with the point of a knife and boiled, so that the seeds can be removed easily. Once dry, they are fixed to a stick 20 to 30 cm long, small moon-shaped holes are burnt into them, and they are filled with 10 to 50 hard seeds. Because the pods differ in size, each one sounds different.

A rattle can have from 1 to 10 pods. Among the Kiga and the Hutu it has one pod, while the Nyambo fix a pod to each end of the stick. The Kiga also use it in their rituals, with several pods; rattles with up to ten pods on a forked stick are used by healers.