ABSTRACT
The rise of tende The use of the mortar as a drum may be a recent development. The earliest report of such an instrument is that of Francis Rodd, who in Aïr in 1926 described and sketched a tende with attached pestles weighted with stones (1926:272). In Timbuktu in 1934, Laura Boulton made a recording of a Tuareg drum that, though she said it was a water drum, appears to have been a tende of the type without attached pestles (Boulton 1957:A:86b). In Ahaggar, a tende first appears in a text collected by Ludwig Zohrer in 1935. His collection from that period includes several recordings of what may have been tende. In his later writing, based on this material, he speaks of tende as the only "truly Tuareg drum" other than the ceremonial dttebeloi the chief (1935, item 11; 1940:141). Despite the earlier southern references, some believe that the instrument originated among vassal tribes in the Adrar n-Foras region of northeastern Mali, and that it spread from there into Ahaggar and Niger (Mounier 1942:155; Blanguernon 1955:154). Others believe its use to have been introduced or strongly influenced by sub-Saharan slaves (Holiday and Holiday 1960:4; Lhote 1955:184). Whatever its origin, the tende did not become prominent in Tuareg musical life until after 1930.
