{"id":"EXH2026-013","label":"Bembe (Babembe)","people_or_site":"Bembe (Babembe, Congo-Brazzaville)","country_current":"Republic of the Congo","historic_region":"Bouenza / Mouyondzi plateau (Lower-Congo cluster)","macroregion":"Africa / Central Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"rhombe","source_language":"French","object_description":"Rhombe (thin whirling blade on a cord).","function_summary":"Children's toy, still feared because the spinning blade can strike bystanders.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"exhaustiveness2026","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/monographseries03","page_or_plate":"p. 185 + plate E XVII, 60","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Bembe country, Bouenza/Mouyondzi area","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Bembe of the Mouyondzi plateau in Congo-Brazzaville, the missionary-ethnographer Bertil Söderberg of the Swedish Evangelical Mission found the bullroarer reduced to a children's plaything, and he located its lingering power in something purely mechanical: the whirling blade, swinging wide or flying loose from its cord, could strike anyone standing near. He photographed a Bembe man at Mouyondzi holding a simple rhombe. Söderberg suspected the instrument had once served more widely as a secret object tied to initiation rites before becoming a toy, noting that the Teke had formerly used it at circumcision and that elsewhere in Africa its sound stood for the voice of an animal bush-spirit or an ancestor. He set the Bembe case beside John Weeks's report from the Kongo at San Salvador, where women, men and children covered their faces as a twirler approached, not, in Weeks's reading, out of awe but from fear of the many accidents caused by bullroarers coming off their strings and flying into bystanders' faces.","pull_quote":"Le fait que le rhombe a encore dans ces régions un certain effet terrifiant s'explique par ce que, le joueur le faisant tourner, l'instrument peut atteindre les personnes se trouvant à proximité. J'ai pu le constater chez les Bembe.","pull_quote_translation":"The fact that the bullroarer still has a certain terrifying effect in these regions is explained by the player making it spin, so that the instrument can strike the people standing nearby. I was able to observe this myself among the Bembe.","pull_quote_cite":"Söderberg 1956:185","term_gloss":"","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":"Bertil Söderberg, Les instruments de musique au Bas-Congo et dans les régions avoisinantes (1956), pp. 184-185","url":"https://archive.org/details/monographseries03"}],"source_citations":"Bertil Söderberg, Les instruments de musique au Bas-Congo et dans les régions avoisinantes (1956), pp. 184-185","source_display":"Bertil Söderberg, Les instruments de musique au Bas-Congo et dans les régions avoisinantes (1956), pp. 184-185","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Rhombe (thin whirling blade on a cord).","function_display":"Children's toy, still feared because the spinning blade can strike bystanders.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"bembe babembe","display_name":"Bembe (Babembe)","image":{"full":"assets/objects/EXH2026-013_soderberg1956_plXXII1.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/EXH2026-013_soderberg1956_plXXII1_thumb.jpg","credit":"B. Söderberg, Les Instruments de Musique au Bas-Congo (1956), pl. XXII.1; photo de l'auteur","license":"Ethnographical Museum of Sweden monograph series — license unstated; rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/monographseries03","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A Bembe man of Mouyondzi, photographed in the field by Söderberg, holds a simple rhombe by its cord."},"slug":"exh2026-013-bembe-babembe-congo-brazzaville"}