The Bullroarer Atlas

MEN2007-001 - museum specimen

Ngangela kasolo and kahulihuli

Ngangela country, south-eastern Angola (then Portuguese Angola) - Southern Africa

Function not recorded

The whip-mounted Xhosa bullroarer.
Representative — not this record’s object. · The whip-mounted Xhosa bullroarer Image source

kasolo; kahulihuli

Source term: rhombe

kasolo; kahulihuli — Ngangela names for the two instruments; their meanings are unrecorded. rhombe — French for bullroarer.

The Ngangela pair turns contrast into a kind of duet: kasolo is a plain rectangle with its cord wound tight around one end, while kahulihuli narrows into a long taper pierced at the tip.

Object
Two contrasting blades: kasolo is rectangular, with its cord wound around one end; kahulihuli is long and tapered, pierced at its narrow end for a loose cord.
Function
Not recorded.
Source
Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel, inv. III.C.5524 (Rhombe kasolo) and III.C.5525 (Rhombe kahulihuli), Ngangela, Angola, 1933; both listed in the plate caption "PANOPLIE DE SIFFLETS ET MASQUE" in the exhibition publication Retour d'Angola (MEN, Texpo 12bis), printed p. 20, and both drawn on Delachaux's preparatory sheet for the African musical-instrument…
Source location
Page references

printed p. 20 (PDF p. 22); inv. III.C.5524, III.C.5525

Source confidence
low Broad Ngangela culture-area anchor in south-eastern Angola (Cuando Cubango / Moxico / south-eastern Bié). The museum records only "Ngangela, Angola, 1933" with no village; Vila da Ponte and the Kubango are deliberately not inferred from other objects in the same mission.

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