{"id":"MUS2026-072","label":"Kundu roarer held as a power object","people_or_site":"Kundu","country_current":"Cameroon","historic_region":"Cameroon","macroregion":"Africa","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Bromhout / bull-roarer of the Kundu, Wereldmuseum / NMVW RV-1393-308; catalogued as bromhout / krachtobject.","function_summary":"Served the men's secret associations of the Kundu, who called it Eboku; outsiders who heard it took the sound for the voice of the juju.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"wereldmuseum","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/701821","page_or_plate":"RV-1393-308","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate culture/locality centroid","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Whirled hard on its cord, this hardwood slat roars — that low, carrying buzz is the whole of what it does, and a German collector carried it out of the Cameroon forest before 1903, catalogued only as a \"power object.\" Its makers, the Kundu of the Meme country, sealed their men into secret societies — dio-male, nganya, difoni — alongside a women's order, molaba, that held village law. Talbot, writing of the same people in 1926, knew the roarer as Eboku: used by many of the associations and feared most by those shut out of them, who took its booming for the very voice of the juju.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"bromhout = Dutch for \"buzz-wood,\" the NMVW catalog term for a bullroarer; krachtobject = \"power object.\"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Wereldmuseum (NMVW), RV-1393-308, 'Bromhout' (Kundu, Cameroon, before 1903); P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (1926), vol. 3, p. 794","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/701821"}],"source_citations":"Wereldmuseum (NMVW), RV-1393-308, 'Bromhout' (Kundu, Cameroon, before 1903); P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (1926), vol. 3, p. 794","source_display":"Wereldmuseum (NMVW), RV-1393-308, 'Bromhout' (Kundu, Cameroon, before 1903); P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (1926), vol. 3, p. 794","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Bromhout / bull-roarer of the Kundu, Wereldmuseum / NMVW RV-1393-308; catalogued as bromhout / krachtobject.","function_display":"Served the men's secret associations of the Kundu, who called it Eboku; outsiders who heard it took the sound for the voice of the juju.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kundu","display_name":"Kundu roarer held as a power object","image":{"full":"assets/objects/MUS2026-072_mus2026-072-wereldmuseum-rv-1393-308.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/MUS2026-072_mus2026-072-wereldmuseum-rv-1393-308_thumb.jpg","alt":"Carved wooden Kundu bullroarer with a broad decorated blade, geometric incisions, raised crosspieces, and a split pronged tip.","credit":"Collectie Stichting Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen / Wereldmuseum, RV-1393-308; cropped","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0 (museum object record); cropped","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/701821","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Carved wooden bullroarer, Kundu, Cameroon, before 1903."},"slug":"mus2026-072-kundu"}