The Bullroarer Atlas

No. EXH2026-046

Andowi (kundrukundru)

Democratic Republic of the Congo · NE Congo · Central Africa

Function not recorded

A long rough iron Koma rhombe with an irregular notched head and a round hole near that end.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. A notched Koma iron rhombe, Cameroon. Image source

kundrukundru

Source term: bullroarer

kundrukundru: the Andowi word for the bullroarer.

Etymology. The reduplicated form imitates the instrument's whirring roar.

Say kundrukundru aloud and you hear the instrument: the Andowi name for the bullroarer imitates its whirring drone. The Andowi, one of the small Mangbetu-cluster peoples of north-eastern Congo, share the word with their Adoi, Amanga and Andebogo neighbours, one name for one sound across four peoples.

kundrukundru

The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1984), s.v. 'Kundrukundru'

Particulars

Object
Bullroarer; recorded for the Andowi only by its name, kundrukundru.
Function
Not recorded.

Source

Grove Music Online, 'Bullroarer' (K. A. Gourlay), after F. J. de Hen, Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Musikinstrumente aus Belgisch Kongo und Ruanda-Urundi (doctoral dissertation, Tervuren, 1960); New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1984), s.v. 'Kundrukundru'

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