The Bullroarer Atlas

FROBENIUS1925-002 - ethnographic attestation

Sama (Dakka / Samba Daka; Sama Mum)

Nigeria - Sugu - Tsugu - Ganye LGA - Adamawa State - Africa

Restricted

Representative—not this record’s object: Baule bonu amuin mask context, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is...
Representative—not this record’s object: Baule bonu amuin mask context, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Smithsonian NMNH, Department of Anthropology, E435357 (gift of Allen and Barbara Davis) Image source

Langa German / Dakka term

Source term: Schwirrholzer

Langa: Dakka name for the sacred bullroarers; the same term includes silent iron forms and sounded wooden instruments

Among the Dakka, wooden Langa were swung on sacred days while iron examples rested silent in a shrine urn. Their sound was the voice of the fathers: at harvest women and children hid indoors, while boys at circumcision were told that the old grandfathers were crying.

Dagegen werden die Schwirrholzer an den entsprechenden heiligen Tagen geschwungen.

The wooden bullroarers are swung on the corresponding sacred days.

Frobenius 1925:42
Object
Wooden bullroarers explicitly swung on sacred days; iron forms remained in a shrine urn. No cord, blade shape, dimensions, or object figure is supplied.
Function
Swung on sacred days as the voice of the fathers; sounded at harvest, circumcision, and the death of a king or Kameni.
Map confidence
medium - Sugu/Tsugu, the relocated Dakka capital that Frobenius names Sugu/Gassubi; representative settlement anchor, not an object findspot.
Source location
printed pp. 42, 44-45, 54, 67

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