FROBENIUS1907-001 - ethnographic attestation
Kimbuka's roarer in a hen-house hut
Democratic Republic of the Congo - Kwilu basin (Kwilu Province) - Central Africa
Sacred / spirit
Source term: Schwirrholz
Kimbuka, the first Mbala village on the road from the Pindi country, had set a two-faced figure called Mbimba at its gate to end a spell of heavy dying. Here a man ordered to pay for a sick woman swore he would stay and pay by drawing a finger across his throat: 'Tschelikka, Sambi kutalla mono' — let me die if I lie; God sees me. And here, in a hut no bigger than a hen-house, lay a bullroarer. It was not for sale. No one would say what it meant, and the village's 'priest' was, so they said, away on his rounds.
Darin liegt ein Schwirrholz, ein veritables Schwirrholz! Aber leider ist es nicht möglich es zu erwerben; keiner will mir die Bedeutung dieses Dinges sagen, und der „Geistliche“ des Ortes ist leider „verreist“, auf Amtsreisen.
In it lies a bullroarer, a genuine bullroarer! But unfortunately it cannot be acquired; no one will tell me what this thing means, and the village's 'priest' is unfortunately 'away', on his official rounds.
Leo Frobenius, Im Schatten des Kongostaates (1907), p. 40
- Object
- A bullroarer lying in a small hut no bigger than a hen-house.
- Function
- Not recorded; no one in the village would say what it meant.
- Source
- Leo Frobenius, Im Schatten des Kongostaates: Bericht über den Verlauf der ersten Reisen der D.I.A.F.E. von 1904–1906 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1907), p. 40
- Source location
- Frobenius 1907 p. 40
- Source confidence
- medium
- Location note
- Mbala country between Bulungu and Kikwit on the Kwilu; Kimbuka, the first Mbala village on Frobenius's route from the Pende (Bapindi) side and a day before the chief Matande's seat at Mbonga, is not located.
Regions: Africa · Central Africa