ramkie, noun

/ˈramki/
Forms:
raamakie, ra’kingShow more Also raamakie, ra’king, ramkee, ramki, ramky, remkie.
Origin:
Nama, PortugueseShow more Nama ramgi-b, probably adaptation of Portuguese rabequinha, see rabekin.
A guitar-like instrument played particularly (in the past) by the Khoikhoi peoples of the Cape, and consisting of three or four strings stretched along a board, at one end of which is a gourd resonator on which the bridge is placed; rabekin; ramkiekie. Cf. gorah.
1805 Gleanings in Afr. (anon.) 232Others were busily employed in dancing to the music of the ramky, (as they call it,) and seemed highly delighted with their exertions.
1827 G. Thompson Trav. 391In the evening we were entertained by a Bushwoman, in the service of Nel, playing on the Raamakie, — an instrument about forty inches long by five broad, and having the half of calabash affixed to the one end, with strings somewhat resembling those of a violin. With this instrument she produced a dull monotonous thrumming.
1835 J.W.D. Moodie Ten Yrs in S. Afr. I. 224I have often listened with great pleasure to the wild and melancholy notes of the ‘gorah’ and ‘ramkee’.
1835 J.W.D. Moodie Ten Yrs in S. Afr. I. 226The ‘ramkee’ is constructed on the same principle as the guitar, by stretching six strings along a flat piece of thin board, with the half of a gourd or ‘calabash’ at one end, over which a piece of dried skin is strained, on which the bridge is placed.
1934 P.R. Kirby Musical Instruments of Native Races (1965) 249Another stringed instrument, the name of which is familiar to most South Africans, is the ramkie. The name itself is full of interest, being derived, according to the best authorities, from the Portuguese rabequinha (cf. cavaquinho, a little guitar, or machete), which is equivalent to rabeca pequena, a little violin. The instrument itself shows traces of Portuguese influence, but throughout the years the name has gone through many changes.
1934 P.R. Kirby Musical Instruments of Native Races (1965) 251Borcherds, while he lived at Stellenbosch (1786–1801), heard the ramakienjo, as he called it, played by his father’s slaves.
1934 P.R. Kirby Musical Instruments of Native Races (1965) 255Unquestionably the ramkie was borrowed directly or indirectly, by the natives of South Africa from the Portuguese, in all probability its prototype being the machete. The earliest true South African players were, in my opinion, the Hottentots, who passed the instrument on to the Bushmen on the one hand and to the Bantu on the other.
1936 J.A. Engelbrecht in D.B. Coplan, Urbanization of African Performing Arts. (1980) 56Of the ramkie, the Bloemhof men stated that it belonged to those Hottentots who had lost their own language and had adopted Dutch.
1945 L.G. Green Where Men Still Dream 130The thin music of a Hottentot ‘ramkee’, the empty circle of veld under the blue bowl of the sky.
1955 V. De Kock Fun They Had 53Hottentots..too loved to dance,..and their music was provided by the ramkie, whose strains seemed to possess an almost magical power of setting them all in motion.
1960 J. Cope Tame Ox 38The coloured folk sensed in their hearts the great tautness like the gut string of a ramkie tuned almost to breaking.
1961 L.E. Van Onselen Trekboer 63The ramkie..is a box-like affair with a stick protruding from it...It can be played with artistry and rhythm only by a Hottentot Bushman.
1969 J.M. White Land God Made in Anger 41There is everything here from..the two-note whining of the Bushman ramkie to Schonberg and Karl Amadeus Hartmann.
1970 P. Oliver Savannah Syncopators 109Ramkie, remkie, three- or four-stringed guitar related to the Portuguese rabequinha brought from Malabar to South Africa and developed by the Cape Hottentots. Also rabekin, ramakienjo, raamakie, ramki.
1972 Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. V. 609Besides stringed instruments, such as the !goura (gorah), the !guba and the ramgyb (ramkie), they (sc. the Hottentots) used a set of reed-pipes.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 46The igqongwe, a Zulu ramkie.
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 61The four-stringed plucked ramkie was brought to the Cape by Malabar slaves.
A guitar-like instrument played particularly (in the past) by the Khoikhoi peoples of the Cape, and consisting of three or four strings stretched along a board, at one end of which is a gourd resonator on which the bridge is placed; rabekin; ramkiekie.
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ramenas, nounn.ramkiekie, nounn.
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