EXH2026-043 - ethnographic attestation
Kunzukunzu, sent ahead to clear the path
Democratic Republic of the Congo - Watsa–Gombari district, Haut-Uele, NE Congo - Central Africa
Restricted
kunzukunzu (Aimeri); anziko (Walese)
Source term: Schwirrholz / snorrend plankske (Costermans); bullroarer (New Grove cross-entry)
kunzu-kunzu: Aimeri (Mangbetu-cluster) name for the bullroarer; a reduplicated onomatopoeic form for the whirled blade, grouped by the New Grove with the atuamba type of the NE Congo / Uele region.
Aïméri means forest people, and Costermans noted they can just as well be called Walese. Their boys were circumcised at puberty, when the cutting coincided with initiation into the clan: two months at least in a hut on a mountain top, in the keeping of two elders who taught them the clan's history and obligations. The bullroarer led the way. At the head of the procession went the man who whirled the Anziko, and he was called Anziko himself; when the circumcised youths came down again, a boy ran ahead of them making the kunzukunzu roar so that no woman should be met on the path. Women could not see the Torè instruments at all. The board was tende wood, thirty centimetres by four, hung on a saga cord, and its voice was likened to a decapitated man's and to a leopard's growl.
Om alle mogelijke ontmoeting van 'n vrouw te vermijden, werden de besnedenen dan ook voorafgegaan door 'n jongen die het « kunzukunzu »-plankje deed ronken.
To avoid any possible encounter with a woman, the circumcised boys were accordingly preceded by a boy who set the 'kunzukunzu' plank droning.
B. Costermans, 'De Besnijdenis bij de Mamvu-Mangutu en omstreken,' Aequatoria 13 (1950), p. 18.
- Object
- A whirled board of tende wood about 30 by 4 cm, hung on a saga cord or whatever cord was to hand; the seventh and last of the Torè instruments.
- Function
- Whirled at the head of the circumcision and clan-initiation procession, and sounded ahead of the returning initiates so that no woman would be met on the path.
- Source
- Primary evidence is B. Costermans, "Muziek-instrumenten van Watsa-Gombari en omstreken," Zaïre 1 (1947), 515–542, together with his "De Besnijdenis bij de Mamvu-Mangutu en omstreken," Aequatoria 13 (1950), 14–20. Costermans 1947 pp. 524–525 places the "snorrend plankske" (whirring little plank) in the Walese circumcision, which among people who claimed to…
- Source location
Page references
Costermans 1947 pp. 524–525, 528, 540–541; Costermans 1950 pp. 18–20; New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (1984), s.v. 'Kunzukunzu'
- Source confidence
- medium Costermans's declared Watsa–Gombari field district (between Watsa and Gombari, Haut-Uele); village-level locality not secured. Replaces the earlier 'Mangbetu-area microgroup' anchor 230 km to the west.
Discussed in: The Summons
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women