KUNTZ1942-001 - ethnographic attestation
Making the lion roar on the Barotse plain
Zambia - Upper Zambezi, Barotseland (Western Province) - Southern Africa
Play / practical
Source term: rhombe
utwa se si lila lila ka fa: 'listen to what is crying over there', the mothers' words as the board roars.
On the upper Zambezi the winter comes with the flood, and the nights turn cold. When the small children cried with it, an older brother made the lion roar, either by rubbing a lump of charcoal over an upturned wooden bowl or by whirling a little pierced board on its cord, faster and faster. Then the mothers told the babies, 'utwa se si lila lila ka fa' — listen to the thing crying over there — and the little ones went quiet. Lozi, Kwangwa and Mbunda boys all knew the game.
Les mères disent alors aux enfantelets : utwa se si lila lila ka fa : écoute ce qui pleure là-bas : et les petits se taisent.
Then the mothers say to the little ones, 'utwa se si lila lila ka fa', listen to what is crying over there, and the little ones fall silent.
Marthe Kuntz, 'Jeux sur le Haut-Zambèze', Journal de la Société des Africanistes 12 (1942), p. 109
- Object
- A small board pierced with a hole at one end and whirled ever faster on a cord.
- Function
- Whirled by an older brother on winter evenings to make a lion's roar that silences small children crying with cold.
- Source
- Marthe Kuntz, 'Jeux sur le Haut-Zambèze', Journal de la Société des Africanistes 12 (1942): 95–116, at p. 109
- Source location
- Kuntz 1942 p. 109
- Source confidence
- medium to high
- Location note
- Lozi heartland on the Barotse floodplain between Lealui and Mongu; Kuntz names no village.
Regions: Africa · Southern Africa
- Toy / secular survival