The Bullroarer Atlas

No. EXH2026-039

Zande (gilingwa)

Democratic Republic of the Congo · NE Congo · Central Africa

Function not recorded

Mangisa Imbakiyam from Sa’a, Cameroon: a broad leaf-shaped wooden blade with fibre cord through one end and looping across its face.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Sa’a oval wooden blade with fibre cord, Cameroon Image source

gilingwa

Source term: bullroarer (New Grove cross-entry)

gilingwa = the Zande (Azande) name for the bullroarer, recorded by F.J. de Hen (1960); unlike most Congo bullroarer names it is not onomatopoeic.

For the Zande of the north-eastern Congo the bullroarer is gilingwa. Most Congo names for the instrument simply echo its whirring roar, but the Zande word stands apart from that chorus: it does not imitate the sound. What the roar meant to the Zande is lost.

this pattern is not always followed, as with the Mbole inano, Nyali upa and Zande gilingwa

K.A. Gourlay, "Bullroarer," Grove Music Online, citing F.J. de Hen 1960

Particulars

Object
Bullroarer, called gilingwa.
Function
The Zande name for the bullroarer is recorded; no use is described.

Source

K. A. Gourlay, 'Bullroarer,' Grove Music Online, after F. J. de Hen, Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Musikinstrumente aus Belgisch Kongo und Ruanda-Urundi (doctoral dissertation, Köln; Tervuren, 1960)

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