No. EXH2026-057
Mamvu (arumvurumvu)
Democratic Republic of the Congo · NE Congo (Bira borderlands) · Central Africa
Function not recorded
arumvurumvu
Source term: bullroarer (Grove enumeration)
arumvurumvu: onomatopoeic Mamvu name for the bullroarer (the whirring sound), collected by F. J. de Hen; the neighbouring Bagbwa form is egburuburu.
Etymology. egburuburu and arumvurumvu are reduplicated, buzzing names that imitate the whirring roar of the spun bullroarer.
The Mamvu are a Central Sudanic-speaking people of the Ituri forest country in northeastern Congo. Their bullroarer survives as a name: arumvurumvu, an onomatopoeic word for the whirring blade, beside the egburuburu of their Bagbwa neighbours. The Belgian musicologist F. J. de Hen gathered the words for his 1960 study of Congo instruments, and they entered the Grove dictionary among a cluster of such Congo bullroarer names.
Bagbwa and Mamvu egburuburu and arumvurumvu
K. A. Gourlay, 'Bullroarer,' Grove Music Online (after F. J. de Hen, 1960).
Particulars
- Object
- Bullroarer, called arumvurumvu.
- Function
- Not recorded.
Source
Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (1984), s.v. "Bullroarer", after F. J. de Hen, Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Musikinstrumente aus Belgisch Kongo und Ruanda-Urundi (Tervuren, 1960), 171ff