FROBENIUS1913-003 - ethnographic attestation
Minianka cross-barred sorghum whirler
Minianka country (Koutiala area), French Sudan - southern Mali - West Africa
Function not recorded
Source term: Schwirre (Sorghumstengel)
The Minianka, Senufo-speaking farmers of the Koutiala country in southern Mali, made this roarer from the stalk of their staple grain: a 29-centimetre length of sorghum on a cord, pierced just below the top by a small cross-piece. Stalk whirlers of the same kind were toys among the Mossi and sacred voices of circumcision among the Mundang, far away in Chad.
- Object
- A length of sorghum stalk, 29 cm, hung from a cord, with a small cross-piece set through it below the top.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Source
- Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach…, Bd. III: Unter den unsträflichen Äthiopen (Berlin: Vita, 1913), p. 297 fig. 2 (drawn by B. Bauschke) and p. 300
- Source location
Page references
p. 297 fig. 2; p. 300
- Source confidence
- medium
- Location note
- Koutiala, chief town of the Minianka country; Frobenius gives the people only, no village.
Regions: Africa · West Africa