MUS2026-094 - museum specimen
Mangisa bull-roarer (museum)
Cameroon - Sa'a, Lekie, Centre Region - Africa
Restricted
Imbakiyam French
Source term: bull-roarer
Swung at the sortie de l'ésanso — the emergence from the esam sô, the initiation lodge — this rhombe, Imbakiyam, voiced the moment a Mangisa boy came back a man. In the great Beti rite of Sô, candidates were driven into a forest sanctuary, beaten, made to crawl through thorns, and ritually "buried"; months later, painted white, they circled home reborn. The roarer's droning cry belonged to that threshold, a men's mystery sealed against women and the uninitiated, from the Lékié forests around Sa'a.
sortie de l'ésanso
exit/emergence from the esanso
Quai Branly API object 213116
- Object
- Quai Branly object 71.1931.74.2802: Mangisa rhombe, local name Imbakiyam, from Sa'a.
- Function
- Quai Branly API ties the Mangisa rhombe Imbakiyam to the sortie de l'ésanso; no women language is recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - approximate culture/locality centroid
- Source location
Page references
object record 213116 (Quai Branly API)
- Initiation rite
- Forbidden to women