{"id":"FROBENIUS1925-001","label":"Tschamba Samba Leko Langa circumcision bullroarer","people_or_site":"Samba (Tschamba / Chamba; Samba Leko)","country_current":"Cameroon","historic_region":"Tchamba / Beka / Faro Department / North Region","macroregion":"Africa","local_name":"Langa","source_term":"Holzerne Schwirren","source_language":"German / Tschamba term","object_description":"Wooden bullroarers; Frobenius's 1913 plate draws a Tschamba pair, one of wood (21 cm) and one of iron (15.5 cm).","function_summary":"Sounded after circumcision in the bush camp; women, children, and uncircumcised people fled; Langa was explained as an ancestor. Also sounded at an old man's burial, as the ancestor come to fetch him, and with the iron bells at the close of harvest.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"frobenius_1925_tschamba_langa","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/files/59375/Dichten_und_Denken_im_Sudan.pdf","page_or_plate":"printed pp. 13-15; later Langaschwinger references in the same section","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Modern Tchamba village in documented Samba Leko territory between the Alantika Mountains and Faro/Mayo Deo; representative area anchor, not an interview locality or object findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Tschamba say the smith taught them everything: fire, pottery, how to lie with a woman, how to deliver a child, how to bury the dead. When an old man died, the smith told them to bury iron with him, and a year later to brew beer, dance, take the iron back out of the grave and forge it into sacred bells and iron bullroarers, Langa. When the women asked what the whirring was, the men were to answer: 'Grandfather has come out!' Wooden Langa sounded every fourth year, when the harvest was in and the boys were circumcised and sent to the bush for four months. On the day they came home in men's clothes, the Langa sounded again at dusk, and women, children and the uncircumcised fled. A mother whose son had died in the bush was told then: 'Langa had no meat, so he ate your son.' Langa, the women were told, was an ancestor who came for beer and food and spoke kindly to very few; no uncircumcised man could join the Langa.","pull_quote":"Abends erklingen dann die holzernen Schwirren, die Langa.","pull_quote_translation":"That evening the wooden bullroarers called Langa sound.","pull_quote_cite":"Frobenius 1925:13","term_gloss":"Langa: Tschamba name for the bullroarers, wooden and iron, and for the ancestral being whose voice they were. With the iron bells (Jeskinna) the iron Langa made up the Woma, the sacred gear kept by the priest.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","death_rebirth","women_taboo","agriculture"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Leo Frobenius, Dichten und Denken im Sudan (1925), pp. 13-15, 23, 29-33","url":"https://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/files/59375/Dichten_und_Denken_im_Sudan.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240701022026/https://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/files/59375/Dichten_und_Denken_im_Sudan.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Leo Frobenius, Dichten und Denken im Sudan (1925), pp. 13-15, 23, 29-33","source_display":"Leo Frobenius, Dichten und Denken im Sudan (1925), pp. 13-15, 23, 29-33","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden bullroarers; Frobenius's 1913 plate draws a Tschamba pair, one of wood (21 cm) and one of iron (15.5 cm).","function_display":"Sounded after circumcision in the bush camp; women, children, and uncircumcised people fled; Langa was explained as an ancestor. Also sounded at an old man's burial, as the ancestor come to fetch him, and with the iron bells at the close of harvest.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"samba tschamba","display_name":"Tschamba Samba Leko Langa circumcision bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1925-001_frobenius1913-p191-tschamba-langa-fig4-5.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1925-001_frobenius1913-p191-tschamba-langa-fig4-5_thumb.jpg","alt":"Drawing of two long narrow Tschamba langa, one broad tapered wooden blade and one straight-sided iron blade, with cords at their tops.","credit":"Leo Frobenius, Unter den unsträflichen Äthiopen (1913), p. 191, figs. 4-5 (drawn by B. Bauschke)","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MJYPAQAAMAAJ","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Two Tschamba langa, 21 cm wood and 15.5 cm iron, drawn for Frobenius's 1913 volume."},"slug":"frobenius1925-001-samba-tschamba-chamba-samba-leko"}