Shamanic Seed Shaker - Bendo | Rattle Instrument

Bendo Seed Shell Shaker - Handmade Sound Instrument for Sound Healing

The Bendo sounds like soft rain. Warm and low, with no sharp edges. If you know the kenari, you'll hear the difference straight away: the kenari is higher and lighter, the bendo quite a bit lower and fuller. That means you can keep the bendo going through a whole session. You hear it clearly, but it never pulls the attention towards itself.

The traveller

Bendo seeds are built to travel. They drop into a river, float out to sea and can drift there for years. And they don't die: if they wash ashore somewhere, they can still germinate. On the beach you find them as sea hearts. They've been traced from the Caribbean all the way to Ireland and Norway, and sailors used to carry them as protection on the voyage.

The seed doesn't do anything itself. It lets the current take it, and that's how it ends up where it needs to be. That's what the bendo stands for: letting go and trusting that you're carried. You hear it in the sound as well. The pace is calm and you fall into it without trying.

Reach for the bendo when something needs to be released, or at a transition. From one part of your session to the next, for example. A few short shakes make it clear that something is changing. If you're moving towards silence, let the sound fade out slowly until it's gone on its own.

The instrument

The dark half shells come from the giant bean (Entada phaseoloides), a rainforest liana. It climbs more than thirty metres and grows pods up to two metres long. The seeds are split in half and emptied out, and the shells are strung onto cords by hand. That's why every shaker sounds slightly different: the size and shape of the shells vary from piece to piece.

The recording above was made with a binaural microphone. Put on a pair of headphones and you'll hear exactly how it sounds in real life.