BAYILI1998-001 - ethnographic attestation
Voice of the Lyela night masks
Réo, Sanguié province, central-western Burkina Faso - West Africa
Restricted
Source term: rhombe
nyannɛ nábá: "mother masks", also called shishɔn nyannɛ, "night masks"; the rhombe is their voice.
Among the Lyela around Réo in central Burkina Faso, the oldest and mightiest masks are made of leaves and come out only at night. They are the nyannɛ nábá, the "mother masks", and they walk at the cult's yearly commemoration, at certain funerals, and on raids to punish a wrongdoer. Their children, the small day masks, go ahead to announce them coming in from the bush. Anyone but the clansmen who escort them who sets eyes on them dies a sudden and mysterious death. No one may shine a light on them, and no one may imitate their voice, the roar of a blade whirled on a string. They come straight out of the myths of creation, and in a sense they are the first form of God himself, Yi.
On ne doit non plus ni imiter leur voix (vrombissement du rhombe fixé au bout d'une ficelle qu'on fait tournoyer) ni projeter sur eux de la lumière.
Nor may anyone imitate their voice (the roar of the rhombe fixed to the end of a string that is whirled) or shine a light on them.
Blaise Bayili, Religion, droit et pouvoir au Burkina Faso (1998), p. 244
- Object
- A rhombe fixed to the end of a string and whirled; a ritual object of the night masks alone.
- Function
- The voice of the nyannɛ nábá, the night masks of the shù cult, which come out for its annual commemoration, certain funerals and punitive raids; anyone outside the owning clans who sees them dies.
- Source
- Blaise Bayili, Religion, droit et pouvoir au Burkina Faso : les Lyèlé du Burkina Faso (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998), pp. 244–245
- Source location
- pp. 244–245
- Source confidence
- high
- Location note
- Réo, chief town of the Lyela; Bayili's fieldwork villages cluster around it and he names no single village for the night masks.
Regions: Africa · West Africa
- Spirit voice