The Kele people are a Bantu ethnic group of about 160,000 people, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

.
They mainly live on the south bank of the Congo River between Kisangani

Kisangani

Kisangani is the capital of Orientale Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the 3rd largest urbanized city in the country and the largest of the cities that lie in the tropical woodlands of the Congo....

 and Isangi

Isangi

Isangi is a territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located in the Tshopo District to the west of Kisangani, and mostly to the south of the Congo River.The largest community is Yangambi...

.
The New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 was first published in their Kele language in 1918.

Drum language

The Kele were known for their drum language, described by the English missionary John F. Carrington

John F. Carrington

John F. Carrington was an English missionary who spent large part of his life in the Belgian Congo.He became fluent in the Kele language and in the related drum language, and wrote a book on the subject.-Career:...

, who spent his life in Africa.
His findings were published in his 1949 book The Talking Drums of Africa.
The Kele people used drum language for rapid communication between villages. Each village had an expert drummer,
and all villagers could understand the drum language.
Carrington studied the drum language at a time when it was already falling out of use, and today it is extinct.