The fiddle (or bowed lute) originated in West Africa from a string instrument referred to as Gonje (pictured above) by the Hausa people in Nigeria, Gondze in Ghana and Nyanyeru in the country known today as Senegal (Senegambia). The instrument has one, two, or three strings and rests on the side of your body’s mid-section. Through the Transatlantic Slave Trade and enslavement, the instrument was transformed into the fiddle, serving as a hybird of the African and European cultures.