{"id":"DEWOLF1983-001","label":"Keyo password to the bullroarers","people_or_site":"Keyo (Keiyo, Elgeyo) / Kalenjin","country_current":"Kenya","historic_region":"Keiyo, eastern edge of the Uasin Gishu Plateau (Elgeyo-Marakwet County)","macroregion":"Africa / East Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarers taught to novices at the final initiation ceremonies; no Keyo form or local name recorded.","function_summary":"Novices, admitted by password and ordeal to the house of the final initiation ceremonies, were taught to use bullroarers.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"dewolf1983_circumcision","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/40460639","page_or_plate":"de Wolf 1983 pp. 387, 393","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Iten, Keiyo, as anchor for the Keyo of the eastern Uasin Gishu escarpment; no rite locality given","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Before a Keyo initiate could enter the house where the last ceremonies of his initiation were held, he had to give a password: the answer to a question about the sound made during sexual intercourse. As he answered, a thong tied round his finger was jerked so hard it nearly dislocated the joint. Inside, the novices were taught to use bullroarers. The Keyo live along the escarpment on the eastern side of the Uasin Gishu Plateau, and by their own traditions were once one people with the Nandi and Kipsigis in the Rift Valley.","pull_quote":"Keyo and Nandi novices are taught to use bull-roarers","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"de Wolf 1983, p. 393","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Jan Jacob de Wolf, “Circumcision and Initiation in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda,” Anthropos 78(3/4) (1983), pp. 387, 393","url":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/40460639"}],"source_citations":"Jan Jacob de Wolf, “Circumcision and Initiation in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda,” Anthropos 78(3/4) (1983), pp. 387, 393","source_display":"Jan Jacob de Wolf, “Circumcision and Initiation in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda,” Anthropos 78(3/4) (1983), pp. 387, 393","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers taught to novices at the final initiation ceremonies; no Keyo form or local name recorded.","function_display":"Novices, admitted by password and ordeal to the house of the final initiation ceremonies, were taught to use bullroarers.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"keyo keiyo","display_name":"Keyo password to the bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/ROUTLEDGE1910-001_munge_bullroarer.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/ROUTLEDGE1910-001_munge_bullroarer_thumb.jpg","alt":"The Munge Kikuyu ke-hu-ru-ta bullroarer: a narrow wooden blade linked by a long bark-twine thong to a stick handle.","credit":"W. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge, With a Prehistoric People (1910), Plate XXXII, item 1","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/withprehistoricp00rout","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"The Munge Kikuyu ke-hu-ru-ta bullroarer","pool_id":"auto-ROUTLEDGE1910-001_munge_bullroarer","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"dewolf1983-001-keyo-keiyo-elgeyo-kalenjin"}