Mbira

Two hands showing how to hold an mbira dzavadzimu, the Shona instrument of Zimbabwe, thumbs poised over two staggered rows of metal keys fixed to a hardwood board. Its name is usually glossed as "mbira of the ancestors," and it is the heart of the bira, an all-night ceremony in which a family calls on ancestral spirits while at least two mbira weave interlocking patterns. UNESCO listed the art of crafting and playing mbira and sansi in Malawi and Zimbabwe in 2020.