Shamboko: Soundtrack of the Grazing Plains
I grew up in the remote, rugged woodlands and wide grasslands of Tigrai, where the world is carved by mountains, silence, and the slow movement of cattle. In those highlands, herding is not just work—it is a way of living with the land. Days stretch with the rise and fall of the sun, and the earth teaches you how to listen: to the wind, to the animals, to your own thoughts.
It was there, in those quiet expanses, that my father taught me the music of our ancestors.
He carried with him two instruments, simple in their form yet deep in spirit: the Kirar, with its five or six strings stretched across a wooden bowl, and the Shamboko, a hollow flute made from bamboo, metal, or mountain reeds. Both were tools of expression. Both were companions to solitude.
But the Shamboko—ah, the Shamboko had a magic sound coming out of its holes.
We would take our cattle far from home, where the grazing was green and the water ran cool over stones. Midday was for resting under acacia shade, and afternoon was for slowly guiding the herd back toward the familiar hills. And just as the sun began to lean toward the horizon—when the sky took on the colors of embers and honey—my father would climb a flat rock, sit at its highest point, and raise the Shamboko to his lips.
The sound was not loud. It did not need to be. It flowed like breath, soft and slow, like something meant only for the mountains themselves. The melody was meditative, wandering, unhurried—like the cattle grazing below, like the sun settling into sleep.
One by one, other herders would hear it carried on the wind. They would drift toward us, leaning on their sticks, settling into the grass, their eyes turned toward the horizon. No words were necessary. The music filled the space between us.
There are old tales in our land—whispered among cowboys and elders—that if you play the Shamboko near the forest at dusk, even the tiger will come. Not to attack, but to listen. They say the melody speaks the language of the wild: not of fear or dominance, but of understanding. And once the tiger has heard enough, it slips back into the trees without harm.
Whether this tale is truth or legend hardly matters. What matters is what it teaches:
Music, when played from the soul, does not divide the world into human and animal, civilization and wilderness. It reminds us that we are all alive under the same sky, moved by the same beauty, belonging to the same earth.
The Shamboko carried the spirit of the highlands.
It carried the memory of our ancestors.
It carried the quiet peace of knowing that life does not need to be loud to be meaningful.
Even now, when I remember those evenings—the orange glow of the sunset, the cattle resting quietly, the silhouette of my father seated on that stone—I realize the Shamboko was not just an instrument.
It was a bridge.
A bridge between father and child.
Between human and nature.
Between time and timelessness.
And somewhere in those fading notes, carried away by the wind, I learned that peace is not something we search for far away.
It is something we create, breath by breath, song by song, in the place we stand.
Below are two random Shamboko plays from youtube. I have no photo, audio or video records of my father playing it. I only have the nostalgic memories.
