{"id":"FROBENIUS1924XI-001","label":"Igbue, the harvest spirit","people_or_site":"Tiv (Muntschi), Igbue ceremony","country_current":"Nigeria","historic_region":"Tiv country, Benue valley","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"nach Beschreibung der Töne anscheinend Schwirren","source_language":"German","object_description":"Bullroarers inferred from descriptions of the sounds at the nighttime visit of Igbue; form and material unrecorded.","function_summary":"Harvest-time protection of farms, health and fertility, with women and children indoors during the spirit’s nighttime visit.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"frobenius1924_atlantis11_igbue","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/kolonialbibliothek/content/pageview/11750168","page_or_plate":"p. 265","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Approximate Tiv culture centroid in the Benue valley, matching MUS2026-035 for the same people. The Igbue passage names no village; this is not a recorded ceremony site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At harvest time, the men announced that Igbue would visit the village that night. Women and children withdrew into their houses while the men moved about sounding the spirit’s presence. Earlier that day the participants, men in their prime, had sacrificed goats in the bush, smeared a calabash with their blood and eaten together. The ceremony was meant to protect the farms, ward off disease and promote fertility.","pull_quote":"Masken werden dabei nicht gebraucht, wohl aber nach Beschreibung der Töne anscheinend Schwirren.","pull_quote_translation":"Masks are not used in it, but apparently bullroarers are, judging by the description of the sounds.","pull_quote_cite":"Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea I (Atlantis XI, 1924), p. 265","term_gloss":"Igbue is the visiting spirit and the ceremony’s name; Frobenius supplies no local name for the inferred bullroarers.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","women_taboo","agriculture"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea I: Fabuleien dreier Völker (Atlantis XI, 1924), p. 265","url":"https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/kolonialbibliothek/content/pageview/11750168","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261015093034/https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/kolonialbibliothek/content/pageview/11750168"}],"source_citations":"Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea I: Fabuleien dreier Völker (Atlantis XI, 1924), p. 265","source_display":"Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea I: Fabuleien dreier Völker (Atlantis XI, 1924), p. 265","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers inferred from descriptions of the sounds at the nighttime visit of Igbue; form and material unrecorded.","function_display":"Harvest-time protection of farms, health and fertility, with women and children indoors during the spirit’s nighttime visit.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"tiv","display_name":"Igbue, the harvest spirit","image":{"full":"assets/objects/prm/prm_39580.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/prm/thumbs/prm_39580_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Tiv abume blade with dark geometric markings.","credit":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1933.29.22)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum — non-commercial/educational reuse with attribution","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39580","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Tiv abume blade with dark geometric markings."},"slug":"frobenius1924xi-001-tiv-muntschi-igbue-ceremony"}