{"id":"MACKENZIE1925-001","label":"Konde ifula rain bullroarer","people_or_site":"Konde (Nyakyusa-Ngonde), Malawi-Tanzania borderlands","country_current":"Malawi","historic_region":"Konde country, north end of Lake Malawi","macroregion":"Africa / East Africa","local_name":"ifula","source_term":"","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Children's toy named 'rain'; the old people held that it stops the rain.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"mackenzie_1925_konde","source_type":"published_account","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/spiritriddenkond00mack","page_or_plate":"MacKenzie 1925, p. 53","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Karonga lakeshore anchor for Konde country.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Konde at the head of Lake Malawi the bull-roarer is named for what it once commanded: ifula — rain. By the 1920s it had slipped into the hands of children, and the old people held both truths at once: the whirling blade stops the rain, and a child is only playing. A weather instrument remembered by its name, retired into a toy.","pull_quote":"Ifula, rain, is our bull-roarer; old people still believe that it stops the rain; but even they admit that no well-disposed spirit takes any notice of child's play.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"MacKenzie, The Spirit-Ridden Konde (1925), p. 53","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["weather","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"D. R. MacKenzie, The Spirit-Ridden Konde (London, 1925), p. 53","url":"https://archive.org/details/spiritriddenkond00mack"}],"source_citations":"D. R. MacKenzie, The Spirit-Ridden Konde (London, 1925), p. 53","source_display":"D. R. MacKenzie, The Spirit-Ridden Konde (London, 1925), p. 53","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"konde","display_name":"Konde ifula rain bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-189_horniman_12_161_johannesburg.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-189_horniman_12_161_johannesburg_thumb.jpg","credit":"Horniman Museum and Gardens © Heini Schneebeli (12.161)","license":"© Horniman Museum and Gardens; no reuse terms stated on the object record — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/12.161/","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Johannesburg boy’s bullroarer with cord, Horniman 12.161.","pool_id":"auto-MUS2026-189_horniman_12_161_johannesburg","last_modified":"2026-09-30"},"slug":"mackenzie1925-001-konde-nyakyusa-ngonde-malawi-tanzania-borderlands"}