{"id":"PEPPER1969-001","label":"Ndut gum paxa that sends off the soul","people_or_site":"Ndut (Sereer)","country_current":"Senegal","historic_region":"Arrondissement de Pambal, Departement de Tivaouane, Region de Thies","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"gum paxa","source_term":"Rhombe GUM'PAXA (GUM'PAHA)","source_language":"French","object_description":"Whirled wooden blade about 31 cm long, spun at the end of a light cord.","function_summary":"Sounded in a funerary rite as an exorcism, to drive the soul of the deceased away from the village.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"pepper1969_archives_culturelles","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:04918","page_or_plate":"p. 108 and facing photographic plate (PDF pp. 154-155)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Mont Rolland, Arrondissement de Pambal, Tivaouane (OSM node 3660254647), the locality named in the catalogue entry.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At a Ndut Sereer funeral the gum paxa was whirled to drive the dead person's soul away from the village. The Ndut had reason to fear that soul. Each person, they held, carries two: a mortal amef that wanders in dreams and dies with the body, and an immortal cona that, like the undecomposed corpse, stays dangerous until it is settled. Funeral rites move it out of the house in stages, toward the first and then the second world of the dead. Its first home is one of the baobabs near the village, where it waits. When its chance comes it slips into a woman's womb as a current of air, helps a child to be conceived and leaves behind its own scent, though God gives the baby a soul of its own. Not all the dead keep their distance: the great lineage and village ancestors, the yul, can appear as large snakes dwelling in altars and great trees.","pull_quote":"Rhombe GUM'PAXA (lame de bois tournoyant à l'extrémité d'une cordelette), utilisé au cours de rite funéraire afin d'éloigner du village l'âme du défunt.","pull_quote_translation":"Bullroarer GUM'PAXA (a blade of wood whirling at the end of a light cord), used during a funerary rite in order to drive the soul of the deceased away from the village.","pull_quote_cite":"Pepper, Archives culturelles du Senegal (ORSTOM, 1969), p. 108, plate caption (photo E. Correa)","term_gloss":"gum paxa: the Ndut Sereer name for the whirled blade.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","death_rebirth"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"Herbert Pepper, Archives culturelles du Sénégal: catalogue des collections audiovisuelles du 10.2.68 au 31.12.69 (Dakar: ORSTOM, 1969), p. 108 and facing plate","url":"https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:04918","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240914151205/https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:04918"},{"citation":"Marguerite Dupire, “Nomination, réincarnation et/ou ancêtre tutélaire? Un mode de survie. L’exemple des Serer Ndout (Sénégal),” L’Homme 22(1) (1982): 5–31, especially 19–23.","url":"https://www.persee.fr/doc/hom_0439-4216_1982_num_22_1_368254","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250601031154/https://www.persee.fr/doc/hom_0439-4216_1982_num_22_1_368254"}],"source_citations":"Herbert Pepper, Archives culturelles du Sénégal: catalogue des collections audiovisuelles du 10.2.68 au 31.12.69 (Dakar: ORSTOM, 1969), p. 108 and facing plate; Marguerite Dupire, “Nomination, réincarnation et/ou ancêtre tutélaire? Un mode de survie. L’exemple des Serer Ndout (Sénégal),” L’Homme 22(1) (1982): 5–31, especially 19–23.","source_display":"Herbert Pepper, Archives culturelles du Sénégal: catalogue des collections audiovisuelles du 10.2.68 au 31.12.69 (Dakar: ORSTOM, 1969), p. 108 and facing plate; Marguerite Dupire, “Nomination, réincarnation et/ou ancêtre tutélaire? Un mode de survie. L’exemple des Serer Ndout (Sénégal),” L’Homme 22(1) (1982): 5–31, especially 19–23.","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Whirled wooden blade about 31 cm long, spun at the end of a light cord.","function_display":"Sounded in a funerary rite as an exorcism, to drive the soul of the deceased away from the village.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ndut","display_name":"Ndut gum paxa that sends off the soul","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PEPPER1969-001_pepper1969-001-ndut-gum-paxa-correa.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PEPPER1969-001_pepper1969-001-ndut-gum-paxa-correa_thumb.jpg","alt":"Low-contrast catalogue-page photograph of an arm extending a thin cord over open ground, illustrating the Ndut gum paxa bullroarer; the blade itself is indistinct.","credit":"E. Correa / Herbert Pepper, Archives culturelles du Sénégal (1969), plate facing p. 108","license":"Rights reserved (E. Correa / ORSTOM–IRD); rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/num-dakar-02/04918.pdf#page=155","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Ndut gum paxa bullroarer suspended on its cord; photograph by E. Correa, 1969."},"slug":"pepper1969-001-ndut-sereer"}