EXH2026-047 - ethnographic attestation

Kono (Guinea)

Guinea - Guinee forestiere (Lola region), Haute-Guinee francaise - West Africa

Restricted

Among the Kono of the Lola country in Guinea's forest region, a woman who caught sight of the bullroarer was put to death by poisoning; an uninitiated man who saw it cleared himself with a fine of a chicken and ten measures of husked rice, swore secrecy, and was forced into the next poro initiation whether his turn had come or not. Bohumil Holas, whose study appeared in 1952, found the rite surviving in only a handful of villages — Lola, Gbéké, Gô, and perhaps Gbié and Zougouta — and recorded its name as guèyoumo, "deep or muffled sound." The object itself was a slightly hollowed slat of hard wood about thirty centimetres long, blackened with use and fish-shaped, attached at its narrowed point to a long raphia cord and whirled around the bearer's head. But the name covered a gendered pair: the male guèyoumo sinè, the man who swung the roarer, and his "female," the guèyoumo néa, a second man shod in wooden clogs who beat two wooden blocks against the ground to mark the rhythm. The sound was the "Voice of the Spirit of the initiations," meant to frighten off women and the non-initiated; at Gô the male figure also carried a raphia whip to drive off any onlooker who came near unarmed, and the female wore a crown of hornbill and blue-turaco feathers. Dogs and chickens were offered to it, the diviner naming the auspicious colour of the fowl beforehand, and its instruments were dusted with flour after the sacrificial blood. At Gbéké the carved slat had been replaced by a pierced gourd on a cord, and there the rite had ceased to function since 1951.

une femme ayant aperçu le rhombe sera mise à mort par empoisonnement, tandis qu'un homme non encore initié se disculpera moyennant une amende (p. ex. un poulet, dix mesures de riz net) et en jurant de garder le secret

a woman who has caught sight of the bullroarer will be put to death by poisoning, while a man not yet initiated will clear himself by means of a fine (e.g. a chicken, ten measures of husked rice) and by swearing to keep the secret

Holas, Les masques kono (Haute-Guinée française) (1952), ch. XVIII "Guèyoumo"

Object

A hollowed slat of hard wood, about thirty centimetres long, blackened with use and fish-shaped, on a long raphia cord.

Function

Men's-society sound-personnage pair within the Kono mask system; Holas: 'Le rhombe de Lola est designe par le terme gueyoumo qui signifie bruit profond, ou sourd.'

Map confidence

high - Lola, Guinee forestiere (named in Holas)

Source location

Holas 1952 ch. XVIII (pp. ~130 ff.)

• Spirit voice
• Forbidden to women
• Women-linked

View source Open this point on the interactive map