The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-094 - museum specimen

Mangisa

Cameroon - Sa'a, Lekie, Centre Region - Africa

Restricted

A Yoruba bull-roarer of palm mid-rib from Oyo, Nigeria, a short slat wound with cord; shown for the general African form, not the Mangisa...
Representative image. A Yoruba bull-roarer of palm mid-rib from Oyo, Nigeria, a short slat wound with cord; shown for the general African form, not the Mangisa rhombe, known locally as Imbakiyam, from Sa'a documented here. © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (acc. 1926.91.21) Image source

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
object record 213116 (Quai Branly API)

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