Editing Sigil:Gholibin (section)

== The Boka-Boka ==

Perhaps no Gholibin instrument has produced more horrified fascination among outsiders than the '''boka-boka''', commonly called the '''clackmarrow'''. It consists of bones of differing length and thickness suspended across a frame and struck to produce a dry, rattling range of notes. No two instruments sound quite alike because no two sets of bones are identical.

The Gholibin themselves possess considerably fewer anxieties about bone than many Rhone. A bone is a useful material after its former owner no longer requires it, and its employment in music need not be disrespectful. Boka-boka may incorporate animal bone, old pieces inherited with the instrument, and in some traditions human or Gholibin remains whose presence carries particular significance.

There are also darker customs. Old accounts speak of instruments containing bones taken from defeated enemies, especially notorious ones. Whether this honored the defeated, mocked them, denied them the final silence, or simply appealed to Gholibin humor depends greatly upon which Gholibin is asked.

Children traditionally learn the boka-boka by ''finding the song in the skeleton'': discovering the tones available from a particular instrument rather than expecting every instrument to conform exactly to another. The phrase has passed into wider Gholibin speech and can describe the process of discovering what an unfamiliar person, object, or situation is capable of doing.

Boka-boka provide rhythm for songs, dances, and storytelling, but they are particularly effective in communal performance. Several can interlock patterns while voices and other instruments carry melody. To Rhone ears the result may initially sound like cheerful structural collapse.

The Gholibin hear the pattern.