The Bullroarer Atlas

No. BLENCH2010-001

Idũ kʊ̀mpfu, the bullroarer masquerade

Nigeria · Kaduna State · West Africa

Function not recorded

British Museum Af1999,01.39, the Yoruba board with six tied cord bundles
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. British Museum Af1999,01.39, the Yoruba board with six tied cord bundles CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source

kʊ̀mpfu

Source term: bullroarer

kʊ̀mpfu: Idũ name of a masquerade glossed 'bullroarer'. Adṹ: the Idũ people (one person Udṹ).

Among the Adṹ of Ramindop B, in southern Kaduna State, the masquerades come as a named company of ten. One foretells the future. Jákò is black and dangerous, the “police”, and two others are his wives. The last is large and covered in leaves. The fifth, kʊ̀mpfu, is the bullroarer.

Particulars

Object
Not recorded.
Function
Named as the fifth of the Idũ's ten masquerades; its performance is not described.

Source

Roger Blench, The Idũ language of Central Nigeria: phonology, wordlist and suggestions for orthography changes (draft, 2010), p. 18

View the source

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.