{"id":"FROBENIUS1925-003","label":"Bokko Voko Longto Uonatonajo ancestor-voice bullroarer","people_or_site":"Longmo (Bokko / Voko; Longto language)","country_current":"Cameroon","historic_region":"Voko / Gormaaya / Poli / Faro Department / North Region","macroregion":"Africa","local_name":"Uonatonajo / Wonatonajo","source_term":"Holzerne Schwirren","source_language":"German / Bokko term","object_description":"Wooden bullroarers hung in a small household shrine called Nahurga. Frobenius's 1913 plate draws one, about 30 cm long.","function_summary":"Sounded at harvest, circumcision, and an old man's death; women were told the dead fathers were asking for food and tobacco.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"frobenius_1925_bokko_uonatonajo","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. 120-121","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Modern Voko/Gormaaya, capital of Canton Voko; representative settlement anchor matching Frobenius's Bokko/Longbo aliases, not an object findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Step through the gatehouse of a Bokko homestead and on the right stood a little shrine, the Nahurga, where the wooden Uonatonajo hung: the voices of the ancestors. When they sounded at the start of harvest, at the circumcision of the boys or at an old man's death, the women were told it was the Wuonatona, the spirits of the dead, the old fathers crying for food and tobacco, and they hurried to cook; a messenger carried the dishes out to the men in their holy house beyond the village. A grandfather's skull, lifted from the grave after a year, was kept in the same shrine. When a daughter of the house was to marry, her father mixed sorghum meal in the skull, dabbed it on her body and asked the old father to give her a child. That child was the ancestor reborn and took his name. Each time the rite was made, the young wife brought a hen, and it was sacrificed to the bullroarer.","pull_quote":"Die Bokko haben holzerne Schwirren und nennen diese Uonatonajo.","pull_quote_translation":"The Bokko have wooden bullroarers and call them Uonatonajo.","pull_quote_cite":"Frobenius 1925:120","term_gloss":"Uonatonajo / Wonatonajo: Bokko name for the wooden bullroarers. Women were told their noise was made by the Wuonatona, 'spirits of the dead'.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation","death_rebirth","women_taboo","women_special","agriculture"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Leo Frobenius, Dichten und Denken im Sudan (1925), pp. 120-122","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. 120-122","source_display":"Leo Frobenius, Dichten und Denken im Sudan (1925), pp. 120-122","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Wooden bullroarers hung in a small household shrine called Nahurga. Frobenius's 1913 plate draws one, about 30 cm long.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"longmo bokko","display_name":"Bokko Voko Longto Uonatonajo ancestor-voice bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1925-003_frobenius1913-p191-bokko-wonatona-fig2.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1925-003_frobenius1913-p191-bokko-wonatona-fig2_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Bokko wonatona, 30 cm, wood, drawn for Frobenius's 1913 volume.","credit":"Leo Frobenius, Unter den unsträflichen Äthiopen (1913), p. 191, fig. 2 (drawn by B. Bauschke)","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MJYPAQAAMAAJ","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A Bokko wonatona, 30 cm, wood, drawn for Frobenius's 1913 volume."},"slug":"frobenius1925-003-longmo-bokko-voko-longto-language"}