{"id":"KY2016-001","label":"Sou's night voice and silent dead","people_or_site":"Southern San (Samo): Nimi, Sièrè, Gôyin and the other Sou villages","country_current":"Burkina Faso","historic_region":"Southern San country (Sanpiè), Nayala Province, northwest Burkina Faso","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"rhombe","source_language":"French; San","object_description":"An iron plate whirled on a braided cord.","function_summary":"The first mask's voice, roaring at night on the eve of the Sou masks' public outing; no one may see the mask then, on pain of death.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"ky2016_san_sou","source_type":"ethnographic_article","source_url":"https://www.revues-ufhb-ci.org/fichiers/FICHIR_ARTICLE_2023.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 75 n. 27; pp. 73–75","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Representative point for the southern San masked-village cluster south and west of Toma, read from Ky's p. 65 map; no single village or performance site.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On the night before the masks come out in the southern San villages, the first mask roars in the dark, and to see it then is death. The drummer who must accompany it spreads a mat on his own roof and lies on his back, so that he plays without looking. The roar comes from an iron plate whirled on a braided cord: the mask's voice. Sou, the mask cult the southern San took from their Nuna-Léla neighbours, asks for rain, harvest and peace, and while it lasts the village must be at peace. A loud quarrel offends it. If someone dies while the masks dance, the death goes unannounced and the burial is quiet; no one weeps. When the festival ends, its officials sit as a tribunal, and anyone who fought, mourned aloud or played other music pays with a dog, a goat or a sheep.","pull_quote":"Les morts ne sont pas pleurés.","pull_quote_translation":"The dead are not mourned.","pull_quote_cite":"Jean Célestin Ky, 2016, p. 74","term_gloss":"Sou: the San mask cult and its divinity, adopted from the Nuna-Léla.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","agriculture","weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Jean Célestin Ky, 'Le culte des masques et la recherche de la paix chez les San (nord-ouest du Burkina),' Godo Godo 27 (2016), pp. 63–78","url":"https://fr.scribd.com/document/970660944/FICHIR-ARTICLE-2023-sur-le-signe-des-masques"}],"source_citations":"Jean Célestin Ky, 'Le culte des masques et la recherche de la paix chez les San (nord-ouest du Burkina),' Godo Godo 27 (2016), pp. 63–78","source_display":"Jean Célestin Ky, 'Le culte des masques et la recherche de la paix chez les San (nord-ouest du Burkina),' Godo Godo 27 (2016), pp. 63–78","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"An iron plate whirled on a braided cord.","function_display":"The first mask's voice, roaring at night on the eve of the Sou masks' public outing; no one may see the mask then, on pain of death.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"southern san","display_name":"Sou's night voice and silent dead","image":{"full":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1913-002_frobenius1913-p297-fig1-west-mossi-sorgh.png","thumb":"assets/objects/FROBENIUS1913-002_frobenius1913-p297-fig1-west-mossi-sorgh_thumb.jpg","credit":"Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach… III (1913), p. 297 fig. 1, drawn by B. Bauschke","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MJYPAQAAMAAJ","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"The sorghum-stalk whirler of the West Mossi at Ouagadougou, 28.5 cm","pool_id":"auto-FROBENIUS1913-002_frobenius1913-p297-fig1-west-mossi-sorgh","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"ky2016-001-southern-san-samo-nimi-siere-goyin-and-the-other-sou-villages"}