FROBENIUS1913-002 - ethnographic attestation
Mossi sorghum-stalk whirler
Burkina Faso - Ouagadougou (Wagadugu), Mossi kingdom, Upper Volta - West Africa
Play / practical
Source term: Schwirre; Schwirrohr (Sorghumstengel)
At Ouagadougou, the Mossi royal capital, the bullroarer was a toy cut from the staple crop: a length of sorghum stalk, 28.5 centimetres, whirled on a cord. The Tamberma of northern Togo and the Jukun of the Benue played with the same stalk whirlers. Only far to the east, among the Mundang, did the sorghum toy become a sacred instrument, singing the high notes of the roarer consort at circumcision.
Hier sind sie aber nicht wie bei jenen Spielzeug; hier surren sie als heilige Werkzeuge die höheren Klänge des Schwirrkonzertes.
Here, though, they are not toys as among those peoples; here they whirr the higher notes of the bullroarer concert as sacred instruments.
Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach… III (1913), p. 149
- Object
- A length of sorghum stalk, 28.5 cm, hung from a cord through its top.
- Function
- A toy.
- Source
- Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach…, Bd. III: Unter den unsträflichen Äthiopen (Berlin: Vita, 1913), p. 297 fig. 1 (drawn by B. Bauschke) and pp. 149–150
- Source location
Page references
p. 297 fig. 1; pp. 149–150
- Source confidence
- medium
- Location note
- Ouagadougou, the provenance Frobenius gives ("der West-Mossi in Wagadugu").
Regions: Africa · West Africa
- Toy / secular survival