Musee de Manega (Manega Museum)

Musée de Manega or Manega Museum is a museum located 55 km northwest of the city Ouagadougou, in the village of Manega, Burkina Faso. It was established by Frédéric Pacéré Titinga, a Burkinabé solicitor and writer who had a keen interest in the culture of his native country.

The museum specializes in the country’s arts and music instruments. The music instruments are considered as the closest and everlasting companions of man in the area. They believe that instruments contribute knowledge towards human development.

In areas surrounding the museum, language is first of all a music instrument, expressing itself in its own style before rhythm. The music and instruments have thus played an important historical role that cannot be replaced. Castanets, horns, tom toms, flutes, forest drums and xylophones are among the instruments housed at the museum. Bendre tom-toms or gourd tom-toms or calabash tom-toms are used in several regions of Burkina and neighbouring countries. They usually accompany Kings. Xylophones are instruments used mainly in the South; two xylophones at the museum are sacred, several rituals have been performed with them. Forests drums are specific and are generally placed vertically on the soil unless their size is reduced. The museum has around 500 flutes covering the entire African continent; particularly the Soudano-sahelian zone. The horns are used for language, to accompany rhythms and rituals of hunters.