{"id":"AKAKONIN2008-001","label":"Gban (Gagou) wroum wroum bird-scarer","people_or_site":"Gban (Gagou), departement d'Oume","country_current":"Cote d'Ivoire","historic_region":"Departement d'Oume, centre-ouest Cote d'Ivoire","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"wroum wroum","source_term":"wroum wroum / rhombe","source_language":"French","object_description":"Slat of bamboo or wood, sometimes metal, about 30 cm long, attached at one end to a cord; the holder whirls it in a vertical plane.","function_summary":"Children's crop-guarding noisemaker: swung as a scarecrow against birds and small animals threatening the seed crops. Aka Konin and Guiraud contrast this explicitly with the usual pattern in which the rhombe voices a god, spirit, ancestor, or mask - in Gban country it is in children's hands.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"akakonin_guiraud2008_gban","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://www.africamuseum.be/sites/default/files/media/docs/research/publications/rmca/online/documents-social-sciences-humanities/instruments-musique-gban.pdf","page_or_plate":"Aka Konin & Guiraud 2008, pp. 27-28","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Oume town, centre of the fieldwork departement; villages named but the attestation is departement-wide","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Gban - the Gagou of the forest country around Oume in central-western Cote d'Ivoire - the bullroarer belongs to children. They call it wroum wroum, after its sound: a slat of bamboo or wood about thirty centimeters long, tied to a cord and wheeled overhead in a vertical circle until it drones. Its work is the seed crop. Swung at the field's edge, it is a scarecrow of pure noise, driving off the birds and small animals that dig up new plantings. The ethnomusicologists who documented it, Aka Konin and Guiraud Gustave, noted the reversal outright: in most societies the whirring rhombe is the voice of a god, a spirit, an ancestor, or a mask - here it guards the farm, in the hands of a child.","pull_quote":"Contrairement à la plupart des sociétés où le rhombe exprime la voix d'un être surnaturel (dieu, esprit, ancêtre, masque), en pays gban, l'instrument se trouve entre les mains des enfants qui l'utilisent comme épouvantail contre les oiseaux et les petits animaux qui menacent les semences.","pull_quote_translation":"Unlike most societies, where the rhombe expresses the voice of a supernatural being (god, spirit, ancestor, mask), in Gban country the instrument is in the hands of children, who use it as a scarecrow against the birds and small animals that threaten the seed crops.","pull_quote_cite":"Aka Konin & Guiraud, Les instruments de musique gban (MRAC, 2008), p. 27.","term_gloss":"wroum wroum (Gban/Gagou, onomatopoeic) - the rhombe: a ~30 cm slat of bamboo, wood, or occasionally metal on a single cord, whirled in a vertical plane; a children's bird-scaring field guardian.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Aka Konin & Guiraud Gustave, 'Les instruments de musique gban (Région centre-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire),' Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, Tervuren, 2008, pp. 27-28 (ch. IV 'Les aérophones,' sect. 1.1 'Rhombes / Wroum wroum')","url":"https://www.africamuseum.be/sites/default/files/media/docs/research/publications/rmca/online/documents-social-sciences-humanities/instruments-musique-gban.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251110195003/https://www.africamuseum.be/sites/default/files/media/docs/research/publications/rmca/online/documents-social-sciences-humanities/instruments-musique-gban.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Aka Konin & Guiraud Gustave, 'Les instruments de musique gban (Région centre-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire),' Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, Tervuren, 2008, pp. 27-28 (ch. IV 'Les aérophones,' sect. 1.1 'Rhombes / Wroum wroum')","source_display":"Aka Konin & Guiraud Gustave, 'Les instruments de musique gban (Région centre-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire),' Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, Tervuren, 2008, pp. 27-28 (ch. IV 'Les aérophones,' sect. 1.1 'Rhombes / Wroum wroum')","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Slat of bamboo or wood, sometimes metal, about 30 cm long, attached at one end to a cord; the holder whirls it in a vertical plane.","function_display":"Children's crop-guarding noisemaker: swung as a scarecrow against birds and small animals threatening the seed crops. Aka Konin and Guiraud contrast this explicitly with the usual pattern in which the rhombe voices a god, spirit, ancestor, or mask - in Gban country it is in children's hands.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"gban","display_name":"Gban (Gagou) wroum wroum bird-scarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1913-003_frobenius1913-p297-fig2-minianka-sorghum.png","thumb":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1913-003_frobenius1913-p297-fig2-minianka-sorghum_thumb.jpg","alt":"Small monochrome drawing of a Minianka (Senufo) sorghum-stalk whirler, with a short cross-piece near one end.","credit":"Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach… III (1913), p. 297 fig. 2, drawn by B. Bauschke","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MJYPAQAAMAAJ","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"A Minianka (Senufo) bullroarer","pool_id":"auto-FROBENIUS1913-003_frobenius1913-p297-fig2-minianka-sorghum"},"slug":"akakonin2008-001-gban-gagou-departement-d-oume"}