EXH2026-016 - secondary catalog
Babira (Bira), Ituri
Democratic Republic of the Congo - NE Congo (Babali initiation belt) - Central Africa
Restricted
Source term: rhombe
The Babira (Bira) of northeastern Congo are listed by the Belgian ethnographer Édouard de Jonghe, writing in 1936, among the neighbours of the Babali who shared a single tribal-initiation complex, of which the bullroarer was a part. In de Jonghe's account, quoted by the Swedish ethnomusicologist Bertil Söderberg two decades later, that complex "is found, with some variations, among the neighbours of the Babali: Bakumu, Babira, Wanyanza, Bangelima, Barundi, Bapopoi, Wagenia and Lokele." De Jonghe described the instrument as a board fixed to a cord which, swung in a sling motion, gave off a roaring whir that frightened the uninitiated. In the Lower Congo, far to the west, Söderberg found the same instrument reduced to a child's toy, still feared mainly because a roarer slipping its string could fly into a bystander's face.
…le rhombe est lié au complexe d'initiation tribale qui «se rencontre avec quelques variantes chez les voisins des Babali: Bakumu, Babira, Wanyanza, Bangelima, Barundi, Bapopoi, Wagenia et Lokele».
…the bullroarer is bound up with the tribal-initiation complex which "is found, with some variations, among the neighbours of the Babali: Bakumu, Babira, Wanyanza, Bangelima, Barundi, Bapopoi, Wagenia and Lokele."
de Jonghe 1936:62–63, quoted in Söderberg, Les Instruments de Musique au Bas-Congo (1956:184–185)
- Object
- Rhombe of the NE-Congo tribal-initiation complex.
- Function
- Rhombe tied to the tribal initiation complex of the Babali and their neighbours (de Jonghe).
- Map confidence
- medium - forest Bira country, Irumu direction
- Source location
- Soderberg pp. 184-185; de Jonghe 1936 pp. 62-63
- Initiation rite