The Bullroarer Atlas

No. DENNETT1910-001

Bini Oloawon Ovia / Ovato bullroarer

Nigeria · Benin Kingdom · later Edo State · West Africa

Restricted

N. W. Thomas’s 1909–10 photograph of a man demonstrating a bullroarer at Iyowa, standing outdoors with one arm raised beside dense vegetation.
Plate I. Bullroarer at Iyowa, photographed by N. W. Thomas in 1909–10. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Image source
A Nigerian stick-and-blade rig attributed to the Yoruba, with a reddish wooden blade joined by cord to a long stick wrapped near one end.
Plate II. Representative — not this record’s object. A Nigerian stick-and-blade rig, attributed to the Yoruba. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Image source

Oloawon Ovia / Oloawon Ovato / Usaokwhaiyi / Elimidu / ɛmil-ovia

Source term: Oloawon Ovia / Oloawon Ovato / Usaokwhaiyi / Elimidu

Oloawon Ovia / Oloawon Ovato / Usaokwhaiyi: Bini names for Oro, the Oloawon of the gods Ovia, Ovato and Okwhaiyi; Oloawon means the owner of the turtle or tortoise. ɛmil-ovia: literally "the cow (ɛmila) of Ovia" — the practice of twirling the bull roarer at the Ovia society.

At the Oba of Benin's new-yam meal, the Elimidu voice rose and women shut themselves indoors. The same bullroarer entered Ovia's annual festival and men's initiation, sounding a boundary between the public town and male ritual knowledge.

the bull roarer is certainly used at Ovia’s yearly festival in Benin territory.

R. E. Dennett, Nigerian Studies (1910), p. 39.

Particulars

Object
A bullroarer; no Bini-specific morphology recorded.
Function
Ovia annual festival and related Oro events; male initiation; deterrent to women and other outsiders.

Sources

  1. R. E. Dennett, Nigerian Studies; or, The Religious and Political System of the Yoruba (London: Macmillan, 1910), p. 39. View
  2. P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1926), p. 764. View
  3. Hermann Melzian, A Concise Dictionary of the Bini Language of Southern Nigeria (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1937), s.v. ɛmila. View

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