The Bullroarer Atlas

No. BUCKNER2004-001

Ehing master of the forest

Senegal · Lower Casamance, Ziguinchor Region (Bakunum) · West Africa

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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.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Ndut gum paxa bullroarer suspended on its cord Image source

Source term: rhombe ('maître de la forêt')

maître de la forêt: 'master of the forest', the Ehing bullroarer.

The cord that ties the Ehing master of the forest to the hand that swings it is made of cotton, and not just anyone may prepare that cotton: only a girl who has not yet begun to menstruate, or a woman past menopause. The master of the forest is a bullroarer. The Ehing of Lower Casamance divide the world in two, men with the dry season and palm wine, women with the rainy season and rice, and the cord passes only through the hands of women outside their fertile years. Across the border, their Kujamaat neighbours hear a master of the forest bellowing from the initiation grove.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer called the master of the forest, tied to a cord of specially prepared cotton.

Source

Margaret Buckner, 'Ce que nous dit la cloche manjako,' L'Homme 171–172 (2004), p. 225 n. 12

View the source

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