Sou's night voice and silent dead

Source term: rhombe

Sou: the San mask cult and its divinity, adopted from the Nuna-Léla.

On the night before the masks come out in the southern San villages, the first mask roars in the dark, and to see it then is death. The drummer who must accompany it spreads a mat on his own roof and lies on his back, so that he plays without looking. The roar comes from an iron plate whirled on a braided cord: the mask's voice. Sou, the mask cult the southern San took from their Nuna-Léla neighbours, asks for rain, harvest and peace, and while it lasts the village must be at peace. A loud quarrel offends it. If someone dies while the masks dance, the death goes unannounced and the burial is quiet; no one weeps. When the festival ends, its officials sit as a tribunal, and anyone who fought, mourned aloud or played other music pays with a dog, a goat or a sheep.

Les morts ne sont pas pleurés.

The dead are not mourned.

Jean Célestin Ky, 2016, p. 74

Particulars

Object

An iron plate whirled on a braided cord.

Function

The first mask's voice, roaring at night on the eve of the Sou masks' public outing; no one may see the mask then, on pain of death.