{"id":"GABAIL2012-001","label":"Bokoré night roarers","people_or_site":"Bassari (ɓe-liyan) of the Bokoré villages","country_current":"Guinea","historic_region":"Bokoré village group, Koundara prefecture (Guingan and Termessè sub-prefectures), Guinea–Senegal border hills","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarers","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bullroarers whirled at night during Bassari boys’ initiation; material, form and local name unrecorded.","function_summary":"Whirled at night during the boys’ initiation by the first age grade of initiators, the same young men who make the initiatory being endaw appear under a heap of leaves.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"gabail2012_bokore_bassari","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/viewFile/138/207","page_or_plate":"p. 146 (bullroarers, first age grade); p. 141 (endaw; boys symbolically killed and reborn); p. 139 n. 3 (Bokoré fieldwork)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"UNESCO tentative-list anchor for the Bassari cultural landscape of Guinea, whose northern sector is Bokoré (Koundara prefecture); not a measured village location. Gabail names the village group, not a performance village.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At about fifteen, Bassari boys of the Bokoré villages in the hills of northern Guinea are taken from their families, symbolically killed and reborn by endaw, the initiatory being: a chameleon, present as a man’s guttural cry or as a shapeless heap of leaves with men moving inside it. At night the bullroarers sound. They are whirled by the youngest initiators, the young men of the first age grade, who also crawl together under the leaves to become endaw. Every evening, after the beatings, the same young men walk the novices back to the communal house, holding them up when the boys pretend they cannot walk. They keep out of the violence in the camp: these novices will soon join their own age set.","pull_quote":"they are the ones who whirl the bullroarers at night, and who simulate the initiatory entity endaw by collectively covering themselves with a heap of leaves.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Laurent Gabail, \"Performing opacity,\" HAU 2(2) (2012), p. 146","term_gloss":"Bokoré: \"Those of Koré,\" the village group named for Koré, the Bassari male initiation. endaw: the initiatory being, thought of as a chameleon.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation","death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Laurent Gabail, “Performing opacity: Initiation and ritual interactions across the ages among the Bassari of Guinea,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2(2) (2012): 138–162, pp. 141, 146.","url":"https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/viewFile/138/207"}],"source_citations":"Laurent Gabail, “Performing opacity: Initiation and ritual interactions across the ages among the Bassari of Guinea,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2(2) (2012): 138–162, pp. 141, 146.","source_display":"Laurent Gabail, “Performing opacity: Initiation and ritual interactions across the ages among the Bassari of Guinea,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2(2) (2012): 138–162, pp. 141, 146.","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bullroarers whirled at night during Bassari boys’ initiation; material, form and local name unrecorded.","function_display":"Whirled at night during the boys’ initiation by the first age grade of initiators, the same young men who make the initiatory being endaw appear under a heap of leaves.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"bassari bokor","display_name":"Bokoré night roarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_11_01/SUBSAH-003_maa_z14256ab.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_11_01/SUBSAH-003_maa_z14256ab_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two dark wooden blades on grey: a plain one bound with cord and a longer one with a saw-toothed edge carrying a pasted paper label, above a centimetre scale.","credit":"Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Z 14256 A–B (coll. N. W. Thomas)","license":"No open license stated (Cambridge MAA online image) — rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/529650/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Two Igbo agu manwu from Awgbu: one plain blade","pool_id":"auto-hunt_2026_11_01--SUBSAH-003_maa_z14256ab","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-11-03"},"slug":"gabail2012-001-bassari-e-liyan-of-the-bokore-villages"}