Slave characters in general came to be low-comedy types with names that matched the instruments they played: "Brudder Tambo" (or simply "Tambo") for the tambourine and "Brudder Bones" (or "Bones") for the bone castanets or bones. These "endmen" (for their position in the minstrel semicircle) were ignorant and poorly spoken, being conned, electrocuted, or run over in various sketches. They happily shared their stupidity; one slave character said that to get to China, one had only to go up in a balloon and wait for the world to rotate below. Highly musical and unable to sit still, they constantly contorted their bodies wildly while singing.