The Bullroarer Atlas

FANSO1996-001 - ethnographic attestation

Nso' nyam mfu', the stolen war roarer

Cameroon - Kingdom of Nso', Bui Division, North-West Region (Bamenda Grassfields) - Central Africa

Restricted

Representative, not Nso''s own: a Bagam bullroarer from elsewhere in the Grassfields.
Representative — not this record’s object. · Representative, not Nso''s own: a Bagam bullroarer from elsewhere in the Grassfields. Image source

nyam mfu'

Source term: bull-roarer; nyam mfu'

nyam mfu': the bullroarer of the mfu' lodge; mfu', the senior war lodge, is itself glossed "bullroarer". kifu ke mfu': the lodge's medicine and secrets.

Nso' remembers exactly where its war roarer came from. In one of the early clashes with Bamum, Nso' warriors broke into the mfu' house at Yar, beyond Mbokam, and carried off the lodge's bullroarer, nyam mfu', together with its medicine and secrets. Those brave enough to drink the medicine found that it "made the heart strong" and sent men out to fight and take captives. Nso' soon learned to brew it, and mfu' became the senior lodge of the kingdom's military association, its "strong arm": housed beside the palace behind carved doorframes, its pedestal drums borne up by human and animal figures.

According to Mfoome John Ngo, Nso' warriors entered the mfu' house at Yar, beyond Mbokam, and found nyam mfu' (bull-roarer) and kifu ke mfu' (medicine and secrets) and took both.

V. G. Fanso, in African Crossroads (1996), p. 104
Object
The bullroarer of mfu', the senior war lodge, kept with the lodge's medicine and secrets, kifu ke mfu'.
Function
The secret instrument of mfu', the most senior lodge of the Nso' military association, headquartered beside the palace under royal patronage; its medicine made fighters brave.
Source
V. G. Fanso, 'Nso' military organisation and warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries', in Ian Fowler and David Zeitlyn (eds), African Crossroads: Intersections between History and Anthropology in Cameroon (Oxford: Berghahn, 1996), p. 104; B. Chem-Langhëë and V. G. Fanso, 'Nto' Nso' and its occupants: privileged access and internal organisation in…
Source location
Page references

Fanso 1996 p. 104; Nso' and Its Neighbours (2011) p. 291

Source confidence
high
Location note
Kumbo (Kimbaw), the palace town where the mfu' lodge has its headquarters beside the palace (OSM populated place).

Regions: Africa · Central Africa

View source Open this point on the interactive map