The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MBENDJE2016-002

Mahongwé roarer at Mékambo

Ogooué-Ivindo, northeastern Gabon (Mékambo) · Central Africa

Restricted

Carved wooden Kundu bullroarer with a broad decorated blade, geometric incisions, raised crosspieces, and a split pronged tip.
Plate I. Representative — not this record’s object. Carved wooden bullroarer, Kundu, Cameroon, before 1903 CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image source

Source term: rhombe; joamiala

joamiala: the inventory's heading name for the Gabonese rhombe; the Mahongwé word is not recorded. bongoja: the secret truth-finding dance at which the instrument sounds. bwete: Kota-Mahongwé reliquary figure.

In the forests around Mékambo, in Gabon’s far northeast, the Mahongwé whirled a small wooden blade on a cord until it droned. The sound was there to frighten. It went with bongoja, a secret dance staged to bring out the truth, and anyone the matter did not concern kept to the house until it was over. The Mahongwé, a Kota people, are better known for their bwete, the ancestor guardians whose flat, leaf-shaped faces are sheathed in fine strips of brass and once stood over baskets holding the relics of the dead.

Particulars

Object
A wooden blade about 15 cm long on a cord, whirled to give a drone.
Function
Shared with the Banzèbi, Bekwil and Pové: frightens by its noise and is sounded at the secret bongoja dance, held to get at the truth, while anyone not concerned stays at home.

Sources

  1. Brice Emery Mbendje, 'Joamiala (Le Rhombe): instrument de musique traditionnelle', Bantoozone (2016), after the LABAN inventory, Université Omar Bongo View
  2. Louis Perrois, 'Notes sur les figures du bwete', African Arts 2(4) (1969) View

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.