{"id":"MUS2026-034","label":"Sotho sevuruvuru against dogs","people_or_site":"Sotho","country_current":"Lesotho","historic_region":"Lesotho / South Africa","macroregion":"Africa / Southern Africa","local_name":"sevuruvuru","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bull-roarer of the Sotho, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (acc. 1910.13.2). Kirby records that the Sotho of Basutoland still made the instrument occasionally in his day and called it sevuruvuru - the same word, he notes, as the Tswana seburuburu.","function_summary":"Carried by Sotho children as protection against dogs and other animals.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"pitt_rivers","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39572","page_or_plate":"Kirby 2013 ed., p. 101 (chapter pp. 97-103); PRM acc. 1910.13.2","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Sotho children carried the *sevuruvuru* as protection against dogs and other animals. They still occasionally made it in Basutoland when Kirby travelled through the region in the 1920s and 30s. Its name rolls like the *seburuburu* of the Tswana. A Sotho specimen from the Orange Free State, collected before 1910, survives at the Pitt Rivers Museum.","pull_quote":"The bull-roarer, or whizzing-stick, is found all over South Africa. There are to-day, so far as I can discover, no rituals in which the instrument is used, and no taboos regarding its employment. For the most part it is nowadays looked upon as a child's toy.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Percival R. Kirby, 'Bull-Roarers and Spinning-Disks', in The Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa, 3rd ed. (2013), p. 98 — text of the 1934 first edition","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Percival R. Kirby, “Bull-Roarers and Spinning-Disks,” in The Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa, 3rd ed. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2013), p. 101 (text of the 1934 first edition).","url":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/musical-instruments-of-the-indigenous-people-of-south-africa/bullroarers-and-spinningdisks/ED2B88467E534BAE96CCFC45E0C499CD","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20220503132159/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/musical-instruments-of-the-indigenous-people-of-south-africa/bullroarers-and-spinningdisks/ED2B88467E534BAE96CCFC45E0C499CD"},{"citation":"Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1910.13.2, Sotho, Orange Free State; collected by Donald Gunn before 1910.","url":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39572","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260917174840/https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39663"}],"source_citations":"Percival R. Kirby, “Bull-Roarers and Spinning-Disks,” in The Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa, 3rd ed. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2013), p. 101 (text of the 1934 first edition).; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1910.13.2, Sotho, Orange Free State; collected by Donald Gunn before 1910.","source_display":"Percival R. Kirby, “Bull-Roarers and Spinning-Disks,” in The Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa, 3rd ed. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2013), p. 101 (text of the 1934 first edition).; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1910.13.2, Sotho, Orange Free State; collected by Donald Gunn before 1910.","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bull-roarer of the Sotho, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (acc. 1910.13.2). Kirby records that the Sotho of Basutoland still made the instrument occasionally in his day and called it sevuruvuru - the same word, he notes, as the Tswana seburuburu.","function_display":"","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"sotho","display_name":"Sotho sevuruvuru against dogs","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-034_prm_1910-13-2_sotho.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-034_prm_1910-13-2_sotho_thumb.jpg","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1910.13.2)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Sotho bull-roarer: carved and painted zigzag slat tied to its long swinging stick, Orange Free State, South Africa."},"slug":"mus2026-034-sotho"}