{"id":"AFR-004","label":"Verre Momi Do'os harvest bullroarers","people_or_site":"Verre / Momi","country_current":"Nigeria","historic_region":"Adamawa / Cholli Verre region","macroregion":"Africa","local_name":"baranga; Nenga Kabusum","source_term":"baranga; wooden bull-roarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Wooden bullroarers are whirled in Nenga Kabusum, a nocturnal harvest-cycle rite of the Do'os complex.","function_summary":"Whirled at night in the Do’os harvest rites, when hunger is thrown into the bush; Meek found the baranga specially employed in rain-making rites.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"chappel_fardon_piepel_verre","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://www.vestiges-journal.info/2021/Verre/PDF/verre.pdf","page_or_plate":"Chappel, Fardon, and Piepel 2021 ch. 1.1, ch. 1.3, glossary app. 3; earlier attestation at Meek 1931 vol. I p. 434","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"representative coordinate for named people/region; source does not warrant a ritual-site point","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Verre of Cholli, a settlement of smiths in the Adamawa highlands of Nigeria, the cult house called lug Do'os held five things: a stone inside a skin bag, a long deep-throated wooden horn, animal-horn pipes, iron ceremonial instruments, and bull-roarers of metal and wood known as baranga. The wooden ones were whirled in Nenga Kabusum, a penultimate stage of the harvest-cycle of festivals that took place at night, \"when the Do'os 'takes hunger and throws it away into the bush'\"; women had to remain indoors throughout, while the men beat stones, gourds, and pots and sounded the bull-roarers in the dark. Do'os was the men's cult complex held to be the direct source of good crop yields, health, and age-grade status — \"secret from women and children,\" in the words of Clement Wiu, a Verre seminarian who wrote on it for a theology thesis. An earlier observer, C. K. Meek, had recorded the smiths' night rites in his 1931 account, when whirring iron bull-roarers and iron rattles accompanied the horns — instruments Meek judged identical to those of the neighbouring Chamba Leko voma cults. Tim Chappel collected from this community in 1966.","pull_quote":"The things used for worship and sacrifice are also do’os, the things used are also gods because they are to be kept secret","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Clement Wiu (2000), quoted in Chappel, Fardon & Piepel 2021, \"Surviving Works: context in Verre arts,\" Vestiges 7(1), p. 79","term_gloss":"baranga (pl.): the Verre term for the metal and wooden bullroarers kept among the Do'os cult objects, whirled at the night harvest rite Nenga Kabusum.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","women_taboo","agriculture","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Chappel, Fardon and Piepel, “Surviving Works: context in Verre arts,” Vestiges 7(1) (2021), chs. 1.1 and 1.3, glossary app. 3; Clement Wiu (2000), quoted at p. 79","url":"https://www.vestiges-journal.info/2021/Verre/PDF/verre.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240616224627/https://www.vestiges-journal.info/2021/Verre/PDF/verre.pdf"},{"citation":"C. K. Meek, Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria (1931), vol. I, p. 434"},{"citation":"Roger Blench with A. C. Edwards, Dictionary of the Momi Language (draft, 1988), via Chappel, Fardon and Piepel (2021)"},{"citation":"Roger Blench, “Power and the environment in Momi [Vere] society” (draft typescript, 1993), via Chappel, Fardon and Piepel (2021)"}],"source_citations":"Chappel, Fardon and Piepel, “Surviving Works: context in Verre arts,” Vestiges 7(1) (2021), chs. 1.1 and 1.3, glossary app. 3; Clement Wiu (2000), quoted at p. 79; C. K. Meek, Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria (1931), vol. I, p. 434; Roger Blench with A. C. Edwards, Dictionary of the Momi Language (draft, 1988), via Chappel, Fardon and Piepel (2021); Roger Blench, “Power and the environment in Momi [Vere] society” (draft typescript, 1993), via Chappel, Fardon and Piepel (2021)","source_display":"Chappel, Fardon and Piepel, “Surviving Works: context in Verre arts,” Vestiges 7(1) (2021), chs. 1.1 and 1.3, glossary app. 3; Clement Wiu (2000), quoted at p. 79; C. K. Meek, Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria (1931), vol. I, p. 434; Roger Blench with A. C. Edwards, Dictionary of the Momi Language (draft, 1988), via Chappel, Fardon and Piepel (2021)…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden bullroarers are whirled in Nenga Kabusum, a nocturnal harvest-cycle rite of the Do'os complex.","function_display":"Whirled at night in the Do’os harvest rites, when hunger is thrown into the bush; Meek found the baranga specially employed in rain-making rites.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"verre","display_name":"Verre Momi Do'os harvest bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/bm_E_Af1952-07-142.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest/thumbs/bm_E_Af1952-07-142_thumb.jpg","alt":"A pale Verre wooden blade from Nigeria, with cord wound around its middle and a loose end rising above it.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum (E/Af1952-07-142)","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1952-07-142","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Wooden blade with cord wound around its middle and a loose hank at the tip."},"slug":"afr-004-verre-momi"}