The Bullroarer Atlas

FROBENIUS1925-001 - ethnographic attestation

Samba (Tschamba / Chamba; Samba Leko)

Cameroon - Tchamba - Beka - Faro Department - North Region - Africa

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Bembe rhombe, Mouyondzi (Söderberg), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own...
Representative—not this record’s object: Bembe rhombe, Mouyondzi (Söderberg), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. B. Söderberg, Les Instruments de Musique au Bas-Congo (1956), pl. XXII.1; photo de l'auteur Image source

Langa German / Tschamba term

Source term: Holzerne Schwirren

Langa: Tschamba name for the wooden bullroarers and associated ancestral being; no literal gloss recovered

After boys were circumcised, wooden Langa sounded at night while the initiates remained in the bush camp. Women, children, and uncircumcised people fled. If a boy had died, his mother was told that Langa had found no meat and had eaten her son.

Abends erklingen dann die holzernen Schwirren, die Langa.

That evening the wooden bullroarers called Langa sound.

Frobenius 1925:13
Object
Wooden bullroarers; no dimensions, cord, perforation, blade shape, or object figure is supplied.
Function
Sounded after circumcision in the bush camp; women, children, and uncircumcised people fled; Langa was explained as an ancestor.
Map confidence
medium - Modern Tchamba village in documented Samba Leko territory between the Alantika Mountains and Faro/Mayo Deo; representative area anchor, not an interview locality or object findspot.
Source location
printed pp. 13-15; later Langaschwinger references in the same section

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