{"id":"SUBSAH-025","label":"Nungu","people_or_site":"Nungu","country_current":"Nigeria","historic_region":"Nassarawa Province, Northern Nigeria","macroregion":"Africa / West Africa","local_name":"Juju","source_term":"Juju","source_language":"","object_description":"Whirled bull-roarer; informants described it as a toy or crop animal-scarer.","function_summary":"Used as a toy and to scare monkeys and birds from the crops.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"mining2026","source_type":"secondary_literature","source_url":"https://archive.org/stream/variaafricanai501peabuoft/variaafricanai501peabuoft_djvu.txt","page_or_plate":"p. 90 (article pp. 83-94)","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Among the Nungu of the Nassarawa hill country in Northern Nigeria, the bull-roarer was heard under the din of a Juju dance. Those Juju dances women were forbidden to see. The man who represented the Juju wore a closely meshed net enclosing him from the crown of his head to the thighs, a short kilt of dried grasses, porcupine quills or pieces of grass thrust through nose and ears, and a headdress shaped like a guardsman's busby made of monkey skin; the rattles were bottle-shaped calabashes in loose string nets, strung with small pieces of bone and hard wood. Should a rattle break in the course of a dance, everything stopped until a chicken had been sacrificed to the Juju, after which the dancing resumed.","pull_quote":"The bull-roarer is also known. I was informed that it is used only as a toy, or to scare monkeys and birds from the crops, but I have heard it in the distance, combined with all the other noises of a Juju dance, and therefore think it very probable that it possesses magical attributes.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"H. F. Mathews, \"Notes on the Nungu Tribe, Nassarawa Province, Northern Nigeria,\" Varia Africana I (Harvard African Studies 1, 1917), p. 90","term_gloss":"Juju — the masked spirit and its secret dances among the Nungu, which women were forbidden to see.","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["women_taboo","toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"H. F. Mathews, \"Notes on the Nungu Tribe, Nassarawa Province, Northern Nigeria,\" Varia Africana I (Harvard African Studies 1, 1917), pp. 83-94","url":"https://archive.org/stream/variaafricanai501peabuoft/variaafricanai501peabuoft_djvu.txt"}],"source_citations":"H. F. Mathews, \"Notes on the Nungu Tribe, Nassarawa Province, Northern Nigeria,\" Varia Africana I (Harvard African Studies 1, 1917), pp. 83-94","source_display":"H. F. Mathews, \"Notes on the Nungu Tribe, Nassarawa Province, Northern Nigeria,\" Varia Africana I (Harvard African Studies 1, 1917), pp. 83-94","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Whirled bull-roarer; informants described it as a toy or crop animal-scarer.","function_display":"Used as a toy and to scare monkeys and birds from the crops.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"nungu","display_name":"Nungu","image":{"full":"assets/objects/BATCH4-005.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/BATCH4-005_thumb.jpg","alt":"Kambari bull-roarer from Nigeria: a long, narrow wooden blade with a thickened end and tangled fibre cord.","credit":"© The Trustees of the British Museum, Af1926,0414.41","license":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1926-0414-41","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Kambari bullroarer from Nigeria.","pool_id":"auto-BATCH4-005"},"slug":"subsah-025-nungu"}