Nyandemém, the slave of Gindam

Nyandemém

Source term: bull-roarer

Nyandemém, 'the slave of Gindam' — the Bedik name for the rhombe among the Mystère's audible masks (Pays Bassari UNESCO nomination dossier, 2011, printed p. 38).

Sounded out of sight, the bull-roarer is one of the hidden voices of the Mystère, the men's secret cult of the Bedik, whose hill villages cling to the slopes above Bandafassi in eastern Senegal. The Bedik call it Nyandemém, the slave of Gindam — the initiatory father-spirit who presides over the young men's initiation and the great fertility festival that closes the dry season. When the slave's drone crosses a village the women shut themselves into their houses, and it does not hesitate to shake their roofs savagely. Its fellow voice Ningi-ninga, the great serpent of the Koumen myth, cries out through friction drums when the roof goes onto the men's secret house. Masks woven fresh from bush plants each year, and voices like these, lend the forest spirits body and speech; their meaning passes only among initiated men.

...et Nyandemém, le rhombe, l'esclave de Gindam, au vrombissement qui terrifie les femmes qui s'enferment dans leurs maisons dont il n'hésite pas à secouer le toit sauvagement.

...and Nyandemém, the rhombe, the slave of Gindam, whose droning roar terrifies the women, who shut themselves in their houses — and whose roofs it does not hesitate to shake savagely.

Pays Bassari nomination dossier (UNESCO no. 1407, 2011), printed p. 38

Particulars

Object

Bedik rhombe (Quai Branly 71.1971.80.74).

Function

One of the Mystère's audible masks: the slave of Gindam, whose drone terrifies women into their houses and violently shakes their roofs; sounded beside Gindam at young men's initiation and the end-of-dry-season fertility festival.