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A banjo has a round body and a long neck . The top is tight , like a drum . On most banjos , one string is short , and players play it with the thumb . The story starts in West Africa . People there make instruments from gourds . A gourd is a big , hard fruit . They put a skin over the gourd and add a wooden neck . One of these instruments is the akonting . It has a gourd body , a skin top and three strings . Its short string is for the thumb . For many experts , it is a close relative of the banjo . In the 1600s and 1700s , slave traders took many Africans by force . They sold them as slaves in the Caribbean and North America . Enslaved people had very little . But they kept their music . They made new instruments from gourds , skin and wood . One very old banjo comes from Suriname . This country is near the Caribbean . An enslaved person made it before 1777 . It has a gourd body and a skin top . In the 1800s , factories made banjos with wooden bodies . Many banjo shows made fun of Black people . The banjo 's African story often stayed hidden . The body is still like a drum . On many banjos , the short string is still there . 
