EXH2026-058 - primary ethnography

Banyari (Nyali), northern group at Kilo

Democratic Republic of the Congo - Kilo, Kilo-Moto goldfields district, Ituri - Belgian Congo - Central Africa

Sacred / spirit

The northern Banyari, those of Kilo, call the wooden trumpet mungbalo and the bullroarer oŭpa. Paul Schebesta took both words down around 1929–30, in a list of initiation terminology gathered from the peoples living around the Efe, and then added an etymology of his own: many of the western Bambuti call thunder ogbä, and the connection with oŭpa, he wrote, is obvious. So this may be a bullroarer named for a storm — but only may be. Nothing in the passage has the Banyari sounding it at the weather, and Schebesta says flatly that he never saw a bullroarer among the Banyari at all, here or at the southern village he had visited earlier, though several people assured him one was used. Their kin at Geti call the thing something else entirely, nékundurúku, with a different god behind it. What the oŭpa was made of, how big it was, how it was strung — the record does not say. The word, and the initiation vocabulary it sits inside, are what came back from the goldfields.

Die nördlichen Banyari, jene von Kilo, nennen die Holztrompete mungbalo und das Schwirrholz oŭpa. Ich hatte bereits darauf verwiesen, daß viele westlichen Pygmäen den Donner ogbä nennen; der Zusammenhang mit oŭpa ist auf der Hand liegend.

The northern Banyari, those of Kilo, call the wooden trumpet mungbalo and the bullroarer oŭpa. I have already pointed out that many of the western Pygmies call thunder ogbä; the connection with oŭpa is obvious.

Schebesta 1933:135

Object

The object is not described. Schebesta records the name only — no dimensions, material, cord or perforation — and states at p. 133 that he saw no bullroarer among the Banyari, though he knew from several statements that one was used.

Function

Entered in Schebesta's list of initiation terminology from the peoples around the Efe: the northern Banyari, those of Kilo, call the wooden trumpet mungbalo and the bullroarer oŭpa. Schebesta adds an etymology of his own, linking oŭpa to ogbä, the word many western Bambuti use for thunder. No account of use, and no weather practice, is recorded.

Map confidence

medium - Kilo town, Djugu Territory, Ituri — the locality Schebesta names for the northern Banyari; offset by roughly a kilometre from the Balendu-of-Kilo anchor so the two rows plot as separate dots. Replaces the earlier generic "Nyali country, Ituri" placement, which sat some 100 km west of the group Schebesta actually describes.

Source location

Page references

printed p. 135 (framing at p. 134; non-observation at p. 133); PDF p. 143 (offset +8)

• Initiation rite

View source Open this point on the interactive map