EXH2026-040 - secondary catalog
Mbole (Opala)
Democratic Republic of the Congo - NE Congo (atuamba belt) - Central Africa
Function not recorded
(atuamba type) English
Source term: bullroarer (New Grove cross-entry)
inano: bullroarer term/name-entry for the Mbole in the recovered source trail.
Swung on its cord, this ellipsoidal slab of wood throws a low, tearing note the Mbole liken to the growl of a leopard — the beast whose teeth and menace run all through their forest law. Among these people of the upper Congo the growl is a spirit's voice, reserved to secret ceremony and kept from the uninitiated. Early cataloguers preserved the object and its name, inano; what they left unrecorded is the full script of who swung it, and on which night.
inano
New Grove / Grove bullroarer term or cross-entry, local audit locator in page_or_plate
- Object
- Bullroarer term/name-entry for the Mbole: inano.
- Function
- Source-checked bullroarer term/cross-entry for the Mbole; wider regional ritual context is not row-specific in the recovered evidence.
- Map confidence
- low_medium - Mbole country, Tshopo/Opala
- Source location
- New Grove / Grove, Mbole entry (term inano)