{"id":"GUENTHER1986-001","label":"Naro (Nharo) hisi — //Gauwa's voice at initiation","people_or_site":"Naro (Nharo) San, Ghanzi District","country_current":"Botswana","historic_region":"Ghanzi farm block, Ghanzi District (Bechuanaland Protectorate at the time of the earlier reports)","macroregion":"Africa / Southern Africa","local_name":"Hisi","source_term":"Hisi","source_language":"English","object_description":"Whirled bullroarer.","function_summary":"Sounded at night by the old men during male initiation to simulate the presence of the trickster-god //Gauwa (or the sky-creator Hise) for the initiands.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"guenther1986_naro_hisi","source_type":"ethnographic_monograph","source_url":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2005wjn","page_or_plate":"Guenther 1986, p. 277 (via Guenther 1999 and Kumbani et al. 2019 Table 2); Lebzelter 1934, p. 70; Dorothea Bleek notebook BC 151 A3.15 (1921), pp. 218v-219","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Ghanzi town centre anchors the Ghanzi farm block where Guenther worked among the Naro; not a ceremony site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Naro boys came out of initiation having met a god who was never there. The old men waited until dark, whirled a bullroarer somewhere out in the veld, and let the sound stand for //Gauwa — the trickster who works the bush, the counterpart of Hise the sky-maker — or for Hise himself. Then they walked the boys out to a small grass hut, built in secret by one of the elders, and told them it was //Gauwa's house. The instrument supplied the voice and the hut supplied the address: between them the initiands were given a god with a body, a residence and a reason to keep quiet about the men who had made both. And the trickster the old men conjured could, among the Naro, show up in female guise. An older Naron account joins the whirled voice to the marking of the body: an old man cut and burned a black mark into the forehead; there was a big dance, and they whirled the !gõin!gõin; a buck was killed, and more cuts followed.","pull_quote":"the encounter with //Gauwa or Hise, whose presence the old (Nharo) men might simulate by whirring a bull roarer at night and leading the boys to a small grass hut one of the old men had secretly built out in the veld, and claiming that it was //Gauwa's house","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Guenther, 'Tricksters and Trancers' (1999), citing Lebzelter 1934: 70 and Guenther 1986a: 277","term_gloss":"Hisi: the Naro name for the bullroarer, recorded from Guenther's 1986 Nharo ethnography. In Dorothea Bleek's 1921 Naron notebook the instrument whirled at the marking dance is written !gõin!gõin, the bullroarer word also known from southern San.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Mathias Georg Guenther, The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: Tradition and Change (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1986), p. 277, via Guenther (1999) and Kumbani et al. (2019), table 2"},{"citation":"Mathias Georg Guenther, Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society (Indiana University Press, 1999), male-initiation section","url":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2005wjn","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013012023/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2005wjn"},{"citation":"Kumbani, Rusch, Bradfield and Wurz, 'A functional investigation of southern Cape Later Stone Age artefacts resembling aerophones,' Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 24 (2019): 693-711, table 2"},{"citation":"Viktor Lebzelter, Eingeborenenkulturen in Südwest- und Südafrika (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1934), p. 70, cited by Guenther (1999)"},{"citation":"Dorothea Bleek, Auen and Naron notebook IV (1921), BC 151 A3.15, pp. 218v-219, Digital Bleek and Lloyd, University of Cape Town","url":"https://digitalbleeklloyd.uct.ac.za/metadata/books/Dorothea_Bleek_notebooks/BC_151_A3_15/A3_15_219.JPG/index.html"},{"citation":"Vibeke Maria Viestad and Justine Wintjes, 'Teaching Through Making: |xam and !xun Material Culture of the Bleek and Lloyd Collection,' Museum Anthropology 50(1) (2027), e70045, §1.3.6","url":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muan.70045"}],"source_citations":"Mathias Georg Guenther, The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: Tradition and Change (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1986), p. 277, via Guenther (1999) and Kumbani et al. (2019), table 2; Mathias Georg Guenther, Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society (Indiana University Press, 1999), male-initiation section; Kumbani, Rusch, Bradfield and Wurz, 'A functional investigation of southern Cape Later Stone Age artefacts resembling aerophones,' Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 24 (2019): 693-711, table 2; Viktor Lebzelter, Eingeborenenkulturen in Südwest- und Südafrika (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1934), p. 70, cited by Guenther (1999); Dorothea Bleek, Auen and Naron notebook IV (1921), BC 151 A3.15, pp. 218v-219, Digital Bleek and Lloyd, University of Cape Town; Vibeke Maria Viestad and Justine Wintjes, 'Teaching Through Making: |xam and !xun Material Culture of the Bleek and Lloyd Collection,' Museum Anthropology 50(1) (2027), e70045, §1.3.6","source_display":"Mathias Georg Guenther, The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: Tradition and Change (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1986), p. 277, via Guenther (1999) and Kumbani et al. (2019), table 2; Mathias Georg Guenther, Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society (Indiana University Press, 1999), male-initiation section; Kumbani, Rusch, Bradfield and Wurz, 'A functional…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Whirled bullroarer.","function_display":"Sounded at night by the old men during male initiation to simulate the presence of the trickster-god //Gauwa (or the sky-creator Hise) for the initiands.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"naro san","display_name":"Naro (Nharo) hisi — //Gauwa's voice at initiation","image":{"full":"assets/objects/SAFR-004_weltmuseum_vo85397_san.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/SAFR-004_weltmuseum_vo85397_san_thumb.jpg","alt":"A broad dark-brown San Schwirrholz from Oas with cord wound around its middle and a short winding stick tucked across it.","credit":"© KHM-Museumsverband (Weltmuseum Wien), inv. 85397","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (KHM-Museumsverband / Weltmuseum Wien) — ©KHM-Museumsverband credit required; rehosted low-res","source_page":"https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/en/objects/thunder-stick-431471-1","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"a San Schwirrholz from Oas with its cord and winding stick.","pool_id":"auto-SAFR-004_weltmuseum_vo85397_san","auto_assigned":true},"slug":"guenther1986-001-naro-nharo-san-ghanzi-district"}