HAD1898-008 - secondary catalog
Kaffir / Amakosa / Xhosa
South Africa - Southern Africa
Restricted
nodiwu English
nodiwu: isiXhosa name for the bull-roarer.
Among the Amakosa (Xhosa), the nodiwu was a slat of wood six or eight inches long, an inch or two wide, bevelled to a convex surface and whirled on a thong tied to a small wooden handle; spun round, it carried a long way. George McCall Theal described it firsthand in his Kaffir Folk-Lore (p. 209), where it sits among the toys of boys: a nurse might have a lad sound it outside a hut to frighten a crying child into silence, and a superstition held that playing with it invites a gale of wind, so men kept boys from using it when they wanted calm weather. The initiation tie is a separate strand: a correspondent of E. B. Tylor reported (Academy, 1881) that among the Kaffirs the bull-roarer was sounded for rain-making and to warn women off the rites of initiation. A. C. Haddon gathered Theal, Tylor, and Carey-Hobson into his 1898 survey chapter.
The nodiwu is a piece of wood about six or eight inches long ... At one end it has a thong attached to it by which it is whirled rapidly round ... There is a kind of superstition connected with the nodiwu, that playing with it invites a gale of wind. Men will, on this account, often prevent boys from using it when they desire calm weather for any purpose.
George McCall Theal, Kaffir Folk-Lore (1882/1886), p. 209
- Function
- Bullroarer associated with wind/rain making and initiation warning to women.
- Map confidence
- medium - representative coordinate for named people, place, or region in Haddon
- Source location
- p. 209
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women
- Weather / fertility magic